


/<P/2 




''/ 






3T i^t^^^O^ 



IUMAN LU 



Op* 



OR THE 

GROANS OF SAMUEL SENSITIVE, AND 
TIMOTHY TESTY. 

WITH 
A FEW SUPPLEMENTARY SIGHS FROM 

MRS. TESTY. 



IN TWELVE DIALOGUES. 



THE FOURTH EDITION. 



LONDON : 

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE-STREET, 

BY W. BULMER AND CO. CLEVELAND-ROW. 

1806. 



1 1 



.334 
I £06 



TO THE MISERABLE. 



Children of misfortune, wheresoever 
found, and whatsoever enduring, — ye who, 
arrogating to yourselves a kind of sovereignty 
in suffering, maintain, that all the throbs of 
torture, all the pungency of sorrow, all the 
bitterness of desperation, are your own — who 
are so torn and spent with the storms and 
struggles of mortality, as to faint, or freeze, 
even at the personation of those ruined 
Wretches, whose Stories wash the stage of 
tragedy with tears and blood — approach a 
more disastrous scene ! Take courage to be- 
hold a Pageant of calamities, which calls you 
to renounce your sad monopoly. Dispassion- 
ately ponder all your worst of woes, in turn 
with these ; then hasten to distil from the com- 
parison an opiate for your fiercest pangs; and 
learn to recognise the lenity of your Destinies, 



[ vi] 

if they have spared you from the lightest of 
those mightier and more grinding agonies, 
which claim to be emphatically characterized 
as u The Miseries of Human Life ;" — miseries, 
which excruciate the minds and bodies of 
none more insupportably, than of those He- 
roes in anguish, those writhing Martyrs to the 
plagues and frenzies of vexation, whose trem- 
bling hands must shortly cease to trace the 
names of 

TIMOTHY TESTY, 
SAMUEL SENSITIVE.* 



* The above address, written by Mr. Sensitive, was heartily 
subscribed by his pitiable Partner in the Firm of Misery. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



DIALOGUE THE FIRST. 

Introduction of Mr. Samuel Sensitive and 
Mr. Timothy Testy to the Reader's Ac- 
quaintance - - Page 1 

DIALOGUE THE SECOND. 

Miseries of the Country - 20 

DIALOGUE THE THIRD. 

Miseries of Games, Sports, &c. and of Do- 
mestic Arts and Recreations - 42 

DIALOGUE THE FOURTH. 

Miseries of London - - 6l 

DIALOGUE THE FIFTH. 

Miseries of public Places of Entertainment 83 

DIALOGUE THE SIXTH. 

Miseries of Travelling - 9$ 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

DIALOGUE THE SEVENTH. 

Miseries of Social Life - Page 129 

DIALOGUE THE EIGHTH, 
Miseries of Reading and Writing - 169 

DIALOGUE THE NINTH. 

Miseries of the Table, &c. - 183 

DIALOGUE THE TENTH. 

Miseries Domestic ; including the Dressing 

Room and Bed Chamber - - 207 

DIALOGUE THE ELEVENTH. 
Miseries Personal, or of the Body - 257 

DIALOGUE THE TWELFTH. 

Miseries Miscellaneous - 281 



THE 



MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 



DIALOGUE THE FIRST. 
Testy and Sensitive. 

Sensitive. 

Well, Mr. Testy, and how are things 
going with you ? 

Testy. How! — why just as they always 
have gone — downwards— backwards — crook- 
edty — spirally- — any how but upwards, or 
straight forwards ; — and, 'faith, if I may judge 
from the ruefulness of your visage, neighbour 
Sensitive, your affairs are not moving in a 
much better direction. 

Sen. Belter !— O, Mr. Testy ! if there be 
any worse, you have only to suppose it for 
me. — But you, my friend ! — you are, happily, 



MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE* 

of a hardy and contentious make; and, turbid 
as the stream of jour life may occasionally 
be, it presently works itself clear again by its 
own commotion ; — while mine presents a lan- 
guid, yet a fretting current, with just enough 
of agitation to collect a perpetual sediment, 
which it has not, afterwards, the strength to 
precipitate, or disperse ! — In plainer lan- 
guage, Mr. Testy, I strongly suspect that, if 
we should ever come to be dissected, you 
would furnish the phenomenon of an human 
body, in which the nerves have been omitted ; 
while my operator would, perhaps, discover 
little else. — I have a strange curiosity upon 
this subject — could I venture to propose, dear 
Sir, for the good of mankind, that we should 
draw up a sort of codicil to our wills, so as just 
to leave ourselves to Mr. Cline, to be..... 

Tes. — Carved and served up to his pupils, 
1 suppose ! — thank ye, Sir, — infinitely obliged 
to you, upon my life, for so readily letting 
me into your benevolent scheme — though I 
can't say, somehow, that it seems to inspire 
me ! — no — you are very good — very, indeed 
* — but really — with a proper sense of the 
obligation all along — I seem as if I should be 
quite as well satisfied to xemaii) as I am, as 



INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE. S 

long as I can hold together. — Why, what the 
D — 1 is all this " gvpsy-j argon" about nerves 
and fibres, and I know not what, which is 
gaining head upon us every hour ? — Nerves! 
— why, what can you do more, with all your 
nerves to help you, than live in a frenzy ?— 
xmd what do / do less f 

Sen. Compose yourself, Mr. Testy, while 
I proceed to tell you that your troubles are 
made of matter, and mine of spirit ; that the 

body is a block, and the soul but, " cani- 

mus surdis ;" — what do you know, or guess 
of all those finer disquietudes, those quiver- 
ing susceptibilities, that feverish fastidious- 
ness, and those qualmish, recoiling disgusts, 
which constitute at once the pride and the 
plague of this gossamer frame of mine? — 1, 
indeed, by the painful privilege of my nature, 
am, as it were, ambidexter in misery ; being 
no less exquisitely alive to your grosser an- 
noyances, or tangible tribulations, than to 
those subtler and more elegant agonies, which 
are my own peculiar inheritance; for the 
nerves, Sir, holding, by a sort of amphibious 
tenure, both to mind and body, acquaint me 
with the whole circle of dissatisfactions. — 



4 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Let it be your comfort, then, that what you 
lose in 

Tes. Death and fury ! what is all this 
about? — One thing, Master Sensitive, you 
have just now taught me — and that is, that, 
if nerves are necessary to a boiling fit of rage, 
I must have my full quota of them ; — yes, 
Sir, and in that case, after all your flattering 
distinctions between your carcase and mine, 
I would engage to cut up as nervous as you 
can do — though, perhaps, I may'nt carry my 
anxiety for the actual experiment altogether 
so far : — but be that as it may — I would fain 
be made to see how the body, which you 
have settled to be a block, and otherwise so 
carefully parted from the mind, is to carry on 
the extensive business of discontent, which 
you do not deny that it has to manage, en* 
tirely on its own bottom. 

Sen, But, my good Sir.. k .. 

Tes. Nay, nay, I have not done with you 
yet; — if you, and your mind, and your nerves, 
are such fast cronies as to be absolutely all 
in all to one another, how come ye, pray, to 
be so wonderfully interested in the fate of your 
Jlesk, as you have more than half confessed, 



INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUES 5 

among you, that you are? — Why, if I might 
presume to try my hand at an opinion, with" 
out a mind, I should say, that till Mind, afore- 
said, can shake off this unaccountable weak- 
ness, it may as well, at once, give up the 
double-refined fancy of always leaving poor 
Body in the basket. — 

I think, Mr. Samuel, I may now be bold 
enough to suspect, with all my fleshy lumber 
about me, that our grieving implements, on 
both sides, are made pretty nearly of the same 
stuff, be it what it will — unless I am quite 
abroad still; and if so, I will humbly wait 
while you are so kind as to clarify my under- 
standing. 

Serf, No, Mr. Testy ; I have heard you 
with penitent ears, and beg leave to resign 
the contest : I cannot but perceive that, in 
your present emotions, there is, at least, as 
much of spiritual, as of material ; and so, I 
freely allow you to share with me (though 
still in an unequal proportion) the Empire of 
Misery — especially as I feel that the loss of 
your friendship, which I seem in great danger 
of incurring, and which would strip me of my 
only remaining solace, — that of sociality in 
sorrow and complaint, — would " leave me 



MISERIES OF HUMAN LTVE. 

poor indeed." — But I expect that you will 
concede to me, in your turn, Mr. Testy, that 
nerves are nerves, after all. 

Tes. Aye, aye — a fair compromise enougli ; 
— and now that my heat is a little over, 
'Squire, your candour shall drag out a con- 
fession, which your sauciness had locked up ; 
viz. that though I am reasonably certain that 

1 have a mind, I am, I know not how, still 
more feelingly satisfied that I have a body : 
— with you, I believe, it may go the other 
wa y ? y ou shrink most, perhaps, from a hard 
word, and I from a hard knock ; — will that 
do for you ? 

Sen. Exactly ; — if happiness, dear Sir, 
could find me out, I should be truly happy ir* 
this accurate adjustment of our claims. — 

But our work is not yet over, 1 must remind 
you ; other claimants remain to be silenced, 
before we can hope to sit down easy under 
our afflictions. — There exists, Mr. Testy, and 
has im memorial iy existed, a set of Usurpers, 
who assume to themselves a prescriptive and 
exclusive right of suffering, and complaining, 
upon the strength of what they choose to call 
the greater evils of life, whether bodily or 
mental : — of the former kind, they will 



INTRODUCTOHY DIALOGUE. 7 

confidently quote you hurricanes, shipwreck, 
sickness, &c. &c. and of the latter, injuries, 
insults, disappointments, treacheries, and so 
forth. — But what are all these, or worse than 
these, in the balance with our perplexities, 
and alarms, at which they presume to sneer, 
under the nick- names of rubs, bores, stezcs, 
takings, Sec. ? — for let us inspect, a little more 
narrowly, the state of our separate preten- 
sions : — and first, with respect to th^ir par- 
ticular cast of Curses, — ought not their ac- 
knowledged rarity to be honestly set off against 
their weight? as with regard to ours, — sup- 
posing (but not granting) each, by itself, to 
be specifically light, shall not their number, 
and frequency, entitle them to be considered 
as collectively heavy r — just as, in disputation, 
the argument cumulative, when it has been 
fairly heard to an end, is admitted to be at 
least as pressing as the argument solitary. 
Such, I say, is the only equitable, or indeed, 
possible course, for enabling the contending 
murmurers to settle the comparative tonnage 
of their minds. — The tomahawk, or the scalp- 
ingknife, whatever other charms may be 
denied them, are at least recommended by 
the dispatch with which they perform their 



8 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

services ; — one violent visit, and they are away 
for ever ; — but thorns, pins, needles, (and I 
would add, tongues,) are always in the way, 
and always pointed ; noi is there ever want- 
ing some industrious body at your elbow, who 
is, at all times, in cheerful readiness to stick 
them. 

Thus much for illustration: — I will next 
proceed to a more general and comprehensive 
display of our respective pretensions to the 
palm of sorrow, and it will soon be seen to 
which side victory inclines. 

And, first, for those of the enemy :— 

Tes. Aye, a\"-S and lay it on thick, I beg, 
while your hand is in ; or 1 may chance to 
fall asleep in the middle of your harangue, 
being not over-fond of long speeches, unless 
they are well salted and peppered. — Come, 
push on ! 

Sen. Be under no alarm, Sir ; I am not in 
a lenient humour, believe me: — to return* 
then, to these mighty mourners, with their 
"greater evils," — these self- crowned con- 
querors in the contests of Despair, — what are 
the wounds they have to shew ? where are the 
arguments by which they hope to prop their 
tottering title to a triumph, and win from us 



INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE. 9 

the honours of perpetual precedence in the 
ranks of woe ? — Many of their boasted tra- 
verses will be found to transform themselves 
into benefits ; as I will evidence in a few in- 
stances already quoted, and as I might easily 
do in more :— " a Hurricane/' when the first 
flurry of its arrival is over, retires as briskly as 
it advanced ; and if it has removed a few 
crazy houses, it gratifies their late inhabitants 
with a valuable opportunity of rebuilding 
them, on corrected principles both of strength 
and taste. — u Shipwreck" is not unfrequently 
found to be an agent, (an ungentle one — I 
would not deny it,) for the Humane Society, 
by saving the sufferers from drowning. — 

Tes. Well done, my boy ! all's w r ell so far; 
— but how for Sickness? — For really, after all, 
I'm half afraid there's no fun in a fever! 

Sen. Surely, Sir, — is it possible you should 
not have observed that sickness is yet more 
lavish of accommodations, which it even im- 
proves, with its own improving strength : at 
its maturer periods, more especially, it con- 
fers unlimited leisure for reflection, by the 
soothing stillness, and unbroken privacy which 
is enjoyed ; while it totally exonerates from 
the toils of business, or study, and even from 



20 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

the lightest cares of a family : — it guarantees 
from the pernicious consequences of turbulent 
exercises, by the horizontal posture which it 
unceasingly prescribes : — it bridles a raving 
disposition, by bringing its owner acquainted 
with retiiement, in the most unqualified of all 
its forms : — it absorbs disturbing recollections 
in the still livelier and more awakening in- 
terests of the passing moment ; as well as sus- 
pends the activity of the anti-social passions, 
by attracting the attention of the whole man 
to his own personal sensations:— it befriends 
temperance, by the infantine simplicity of 
diet which it introduces: — it wards off the 
varied injuries of the open air, by requiring 
the party to inhale, a thousand times over, 
the cherishing, equable, and safely- treasured 
atmosphere of a chamber : — it wholesomely 
instils the advantages of frugality, by its ex- 
hausting influence on the purse of the pa- 
tient; and, as the crown of all its indulgences,, 
it attests the watchful alacrity of friendship, 
by imposing a constant and absolute depend- 
ance upon the humanity of others, for every 
the most minute article, whether of comfort 
or necessity. 
So much for the mock-miseries of our 



INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE, II 

enemies, of the coarser class. As for their 
nob/er order of calamities — 

Tes. That's right, Sensitive, follow them 
up! — whining dogs! don't leave 'em a foot 
of misery to stand upon; — they deserve a 
few of our sort of sorrows, if 'twere only to 
teach them the difference between hard and 
soft. 

Sen. You break the chain of my thoughts, 
Mr. Testy : I was going to sa} r , if I recol- 
lect, that even with respect to their higher 
class of calamities — insults, disappointments, 
treacheries, and all that family of mental 
mortifications, upon which they delight to 
dwell — if my nerves could speak, they would 
deliver such an oration, under each corres- 
ponding division of our catalogue, as, I doubt 
not, would, on an open trial of the rival titles,. 
be strong enough to turn the Judge — 

Tes. Yes, and starve out the most obsti- 
nate Pig of the Jury. 

Sen. Were J, however, employed to lead 
the cause on our side, I might, perhaps, con- 
tent myself by citing in this part, the ce- 
lebrated sentence pronounced by another 
Orator, on another occasion, — with no other 
alteration than that of reversing the majority 



12 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

of its verbs : — " Nam camera neque temporum 
sunt, neque setatum omnium, neque locorum; 
at haec studia 1 adolescentiam carpunt, senec- 
tutem affiigunt ; secundas xesfoedant, adversis 
perfugium ac solatium adimunt ; excruciant 
domi, necnon impediunt foris ; pernoctant 
nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur." Cicero. 

Tes. No, no; give it them in plain English, 
pray, while you are about it; when a man is 
in earnest, he always talks in his mother- 
tongue ; besides, quoting from a dead lan- 
guage looks a little like skulking, and that's 
not at all in my way, as you know — and so I 
bar Latin, mind ; or if you must play the pe- 
dant, I'll be at your back, and keep translat- 
ing at them, as you spout away. — 

Sen. Had you heard me patiently to an 
end, Sir, you would have found that I had 
done with Cicero, and was proceeding to de- 
fend our cause in our own language ; as, with 
your permission, I will now do : — 

Cast then but a glance on man, and man's 
addictions ; or look at his stations and aber- 
rations, as delineated in our general map of 



Studia; i. e- studies in the school of misfortune. 



INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE* 13 

the world; and what will you discover?— 
u Horresco referens !" — an universal wilder- 
ness of blanks, or blots ! — What, my poor 
Sir, are the senses, but five yawning inlets 
to hourly and momentary molestations ? — • 
What is your House, while you are in it, but 
a prison filled with nests of little reptiles — of 
insect-annoyances — which torment you the 
more, because they cannot kill you? and 
what is the same house, when you are out of 
it, but a shelter, out of reach, from the hos- 
tilities of the skies? — What is the Country, 
but a sandy desart at one season, or a swal- 
lowing quagmire at another? — What the 
Town, but an upper Tartarus of smoke, and 
din ? — What are Carriages, but cages upon 
wheels? — What are Riding-horses, but pur- 
chased enemies, whom you pamper into 
strength, as well as inclination, to kick your 
braids out ? — What are Theatres, but licensed 
repositories for ill-told lies, or stifling shambles 
for the voluntary sacrifice of time, health, 
money, and morals ? — A Senatorial Debate, 
(when you have fought your way to it,) what 
is it but a national Main of Cocks ? — What 
are Games, Sports, and Exercises, but devices 
of danger and fatigue to the performers, and 



14 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

schools of surgery to the practitioner who 
may happen to look on ? — What are Society, 
and Solitude, but, each, an alternate hiding- 
place from the persecutions of the other ?-«-* 
Libraries ! — What are they but the sepulchres 
of gaiety, or conservatories for the seedlings 
of disease? — Nay, to descend still lower, 
what are the indispensable processes of Eating 
and Drinking, but practical lectures on the art 
of spoiling food ? — or what even the familiar 
operations of Dressing and Undressing, but 
stinging remembrancers of the privileged na- 
kedness of the savage? — Which, now, my 
friend, is " the worse," and which " the better 
reason ?" 

Tes. — Bravo! bravo! Sensitive— I see the 
hopes of our enemies already in the dust!— 
Yes, yes : it is plain enough that when the 
trial comes on, I may safely leave you to 
flourish, while J fume ; — I must beg, though, 
Mr, Orator, that when the trial does comeonj 
you won't take up the whole of your argument 
with spirit, fibre, and feeling ; but make a 
little room for honest matter; and do the 
senses, limbs, and othef coarse materials of 
humanity, the honour of paying them a little 
flattering attention ; — as, indeed, I am glad 



INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE. 15 

to observe that you have done, in your grand 
survey just finished. — So much, then, for ge- 
nerals : as to particulars, we shall find no 
great difficulty in gathering, and sorting, our 
single specimens: — *Q yes! a store-house of 
" miseries," or a chest of" groans," might be 

soon filled^ and 

Sen. Admirably imagined ! Mr. Testy I 
your idea had entirely escaped me, and I em- 
brace it with both my arms. We shall not have 
far to ramble, as you seem to say, in botanizing 
for weeds, nettles, and thistles ; let us, from 
this time pursue the search ; and at our next 
meeting, compare; and house, the first pro- 
duce of our heavy harvest* 

Tes. With all my heart ; and the more so, 
as our pursuit may be carried on (to use the 
words of those rascals the quack-doctors, who 
by this very bah, by the bye, have tickled me 
out of a good constitution) U without loss of 
time, or hindrance of business ;" for we have 
only to drudge on in our common course, with 
our minds, and our eyes open, as we walk or 
ride along, and the main business will take 
■care of itself. 

Sen. Well, then, Mr. Testy, only one thing 
more : — as the " lucidus ordo" is confessedly 



16 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE* 

of essential advantage, in every investigation, 
allow me to suggest what appears to me the 
properest method of proceeding; viz. that at 
every subsequent interview, from this time 
till we have completed our undertaking, we 
should bring forward some one general head 
of wretchedness, for separate discussion ; 
producing, respectively, such items of an- 
guish, only as may be reducible to that spe- 
cific class of " miseries/' — We are, now, 
unfortunately for us both — and yet where 
should we have been more fortunate r — We 
are now, I say, in the Country ; — be the coun- 
try, then, the scene of our first pilgrimage; 
and let Rural Tortures, if you see no objection, 
have the pre-eminence at our next unhappy 
meeting. 

Tes. They shall, Sir, they shall ; and no 
fear of missing them, I'll engage: — for my 
own part, I have some pestilent affairs upon 
my hands, that will bury me in the country a 
long- time ; and, I doubt not, " miseries" of all 
sorts and sizes will turn up as plentifully a$ 
the dust, or mire, under my feet. 

And so, having now pretty well settled all 

our preliminaries, I was going to say, 

farewell ;— but that would have been, in some 



INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE. 17 

sort, u against the canon laws of our founda- 
tion," you know. 

Sen. Alas, it would ! — and on the same 
cruel account, / will sink the insulting cere- 
mony of wishing you — a good morning. Let 
me rather say, 

Go ; count thy way with sighs 3 — I mine with 
Groans." Shak. 

Tes. Aye, it may pass well enough as a quo- 
tation ; otherwise, by rights, yon should have 
taken the sighs, and given me the Groans. — 
And so, your humble servant. — (Goes and re- 
turns) Ho! Sensitive! Sensitive! — You 
know my addled-head : — one thing I forgot;— 
if we are to meet upon this new scheme of 
ours, there is a third person who must posi- 
tively be of the party ; or else, we must be 
" off bv consent. " You must know that I 
have just called away my lubberly boy Ned 
from Eton, at an hour's notice, though he had 
but another month to stay, as it was. for 
what do you think ? — Old Busby, there, (I 
forget the fellow's right name — the head pe- 
dagogue, however — ) has thought proper to 
tell me that my boy is half mad ! though, for 
all I can see, the whole offence is that he is a 



18 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

little wild, or «p, in his way of reading ; and, 
by running from one book to another, and 
dashing from this part of the volume to that, 
has stuffed his head with more words than he 
knows well how to manage ; and so, by dint 
of a good memory, without quite brains enough 
to ballast it, he flirts out his crude scraps of 
authors upon all occasions, without stopping 
to think where he is, or who are his hearers. 

Sen. A singular propensity, it must be 
owned. 

Tes. Yes,—- bat singularity is not madness, I 
hope, or I should be in the same scrape, my- 
self; for, as to his quoting fits, he drew them 
from me, I believe ; I have had them upon 
me, off and on, ever since I was thus high ; 
and Ned, the impudent dog, dares to tell me 
that he brings in his Parallels, as he calls 
them, as much to the purpose as 1 do. Be 
this as it may, I wink at his cacoethes quo- 
fundi;— but, to cure him of a few other wild 
tri«ks, which I don't like quite so well, I shall 
finish off his education myself; and have, this 
very morning, taken an oath, that I won't 
trust him out of my sight, a single moment, 
for three years to come. — So, yon see, if you 
can put up with Ned's company, and odd 



INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE. 19 

ways, why, I shall be very ready to meet you, 
that's all : — what say you ? 

Sen. O pray, be under no anxiety about 
me, Mr. Testy ; the company of a son of 
yours, Sir, cannot possibly distress me ; and, 
with respect to his turn for quotation, it may 
serve to beguile our attention, occasionally, 
from the detail of our sorrows. Besides, I am, 
at certain times, by no means, uninfected with 
the mania, myself. — With my best respects 
to Mr. Edward Testy, then, your most obe- 
dient* 



20 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

V 

DIALOGUE THE SECOND. 

" Hinc exaiidiri Gemitu$."—Virg. 
MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY. 



Testy, Senior and Junior. — Sensitive, 

Sensitive. 

W ell, Mr. Testy ; here I am, punctual as 
a lover to our wretched assignation, and little 
doubting that you have found the country 
quite as fertile in felicities as I have; — What, 
my dear Sir, is the result of your rambles ? 

Tes. What?— Why, that I shall, hence- 
forth, leave to Mrs. C. Smith, the whole ho- 
hour and pleasure of trying u Rambles farther :" 
— " O rus ! quando te aspiciam ?" indeed ! — 
Whj r , never again while I live — and that 
won't be a great while, I guess, if I continue 






MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY, £1 

to rnslicate much longer — notwithstanding 
the " toughness of my texture/' upon which 
you were once pleased to compliment me.— 
And, pray, what have you done ? — or rather, 
what have you suffered? — though, in truth, 
" miserable, doing, or suffering," seems "'to be ; 
our standing motto. 

Sen. My melancholy memoranda will but 
too fully answer your question ; — for, in pur-, 
suance of our plan, I have, in everj' instance, 
faithfully committed to paper the passing 
perplexity of the moment. 

Tes. And I. — Come, then ! — let us at once 
produce our memorabilia, and proceed to 
exchange their contents ? — Give me leave to 
begin. 

Sen. Willingly, Sir ; and the more so, as 
I shall thereby enjoy {enjoy !) a momentary 
respite from the lashes of memory. 

TVs. (hastily running over his papers.) Thank 
you, thank you ; — aye, here they ai v e, biting, 
and stinging, wherever I set my finger!— 
Well, well! no matter-— -to business. I begin, 
I see, with some of the delights of walking in 
the country : — what say you, then, to 



*22 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 



Groan 1. (Testy.) 

The sole of the shoe torn down in walking, and 
obliging you to lift your foot, and limp along, like. 
a pig in a string: — no knife in your pocket, nor 
house within reach I 

2. (T.) 

The boot continually taking in gravel ; while,, 
for a time, you try to calm your feelings by be- 
lieving it to be only hard dirty and vainly hope that 
it will presently relieve you by pulverising. 

3. (T.) 

Suddenly rousing yourself from the ennui of a 
solitary walk by striking your toe (with a corn at 
the end of it) full and hard, against the sharp corner 
©f a fixed flint : — pumps. 



Ned Tes. Nay, father, such a kick as that 
would pay you for the pain by driving out the 
corn : 

— „_« segetem ab radicibus imis 

Expulsam erueret." Virg. 

Sen. Nay. if you are for corns, listen to 
we: 



MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY. £3 

4. (Sensitive.) 
Walking all day, in very hot weather, in a pair 
of shoes far too right both in length and bFeadth : 
— corns on every toe. 



Tes. There you beat me, to be sure ; — but 
it is the only triumph yon will have, and so 
make the most of it. — Beat what follows, if 
you can : 

5. (T.) 

When you have trusted your foot on a frozen 
rut, — the ice proving treacherous, and bedding you 
in slush, to the hip. 

6. (T.) 

Walking through a boundless field of fresh- 
ploughed clay-land ; and carrying home, at each 
foo-t, an un desired sample of the soil, of about ten 
or twelve pounds weight. 



Ned Tes. Ah ! this is, osDryden soys, — 

ci A trifling sum of misery 
New added to the Jout of thy account I" — 

7. (S.) 

Stooping, tearing, floundering, a-nd bleeding your 



24 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

way, through a boggy, briary copse, with here and 
there a. rushy pool, which takes }Ou by surprise; 
so that you are more and more entangled and en^ 
gulphed as you advance, till you are, after all, ne- 
cessitated to turn back, and encore all > our suffer- 
ings ; and so emerge at last, looking like a half 
murdered beggar : — 

Ned Tes. " Quern circum, limus niger, et defor- 
mis arundo, 

tardaque palus inamabilis unda 

Alligat, et novies Sticks interfusa coercent." Virg* 

8. (T.) 

Walking obliquely up a steep hill, when the 
ground is what the vulgar call greasy. 



Ned Tes. Sad, work !—" Labi tur et.labe- 
tur l"—Hor. 

9. (S.) 

Feeling your foot slidder over the back of a toad, 
which you took for a stepping-stone, in your dark 
evening walk — 

" Pressit humi nitens, trepidusque repente 

refugit !" . ; v. : « • . ;.' 



MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY. 25 

In~like manner, crushing snails, beetles, slugs, &c. 
whether you will or not. 



Tes. Bad enough, Sir, bad enough ; — but 
this, and all the specimens of bad footing we 
have yet mentioned are carpeting, compared 
with what follows, as you'll soon confess : — 

10. (T.) 

While you are out with a walking-party, after 
heavy rains — one shoe suddenly sucked off by the 
boggy clay ; and then, in making a long and des- 
perate stretch, (which fails,) with the hope of reco- 
vering it, leaving the other in the same predicament : 
— the second stage of ruin is that of standing, or 
rather tottering, in blank despair, with both feet 
planted, ancle-deep, in the quagmire. — The last (I 
had almost said the dying) scene of the tragedy, — 
that of deliberately cramming first one, and then 
the other clogged polluted foot into its choaked-up 
shoe, after having scavengered your hands and 
gloves in slaving to drag up each, separately, out 
of its deep bed, and in this state proceeding on 
your walk — is too dreadful for representation. The 
crown of the catastrophe is, that each of the party 
floundering in his, or her, own gulph, is utterly 



£6 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

disabled from, assisting* or being assisted by, the 
rest. — = 

Sen. " O, horrible ! O, horrible ! most hor" 
rible!" — If, however, it may afford you any 
consolation, under the recollection of a cala- 
mity so dreadful, to hear an accurate des- 
cription of it from the master-hand of Tacitus, 
attend, while I recite it : " Miscelur operan- 
lium clamor-'— cuncta pariter adversa — locus 
uligine profunda, idem ad gradum instabilis, 
procedentibus lubricus ; corpora neque librare 

inter undas poterant... .Non vox, et 

niutui hortatus juvabant : nihil strenuus ar> 
ignavo, sapiens a prudenti, consilia a casu 
differre; — cuncta pari violentia involveban- 
tur!" x — and now, my friend, let me relieve 

Confusion and clamour prevail among the labour- 
ing victims—all things conspiring equally against them ; 
— the place a deep swamp, treacherous to the foot, 
and more and more siippery as they advance ; neither 
could they balance their bodies amidst the boggy 

marsh The voice of mutual encouragement was 

heard in vain — All distinction lost between the stre- 
nuous and the tardy, the wise and the weak, circum- 
spection and casualty ; — all were indiscriminately 
involved in the same overpowering calamity ! 



MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY, 2? 

your mind, by a meaner, though by no means 
a tolerable misery.— 

11. (S.) 
Pushing through the very narrow path of a very 
long field of very high corn, immediately after a 
very heavy rain ; — nankeens. 



Tes. Talking of rain — 

T2. (T.) 

Setting out, on a fine morning, for a review — and, 
on your arrival at the ground, violent rain coming 
on, and continuing without one moment's intermis- 
sion during the whole of the spectacle; just at the 
close of which, the sun peeps out from his hiding- 
place, and laughs in your face. 



Sen. So much for a wet review ; but I can 
more than match you with a dry one ; — ecce 
sign urn : — 

13. (S.) 

Attending, on foot, a review of cavalry, on a 
deep sandy plain, in a furious wind ; which ushers 
the dust into your eyes from every quarter of the 
compass to which you turn for refuge — not to 



28 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

mention the costume of a Miller, in which the said 
wind and dust agree that you shall appear. 



It was at just such a review, I doubt not, 
that poor Young was inspired with the fol- 
lowing most remarkable lines: 

, — . <« then each atom, 

Asserting its indisputable right 

To dance, would form an universe of clust ! 

Night Thoughts, N. 9> or. The Consolation. 

14. (T.) 

Ploughing up your newly-rolled gravel walk, by 
walking over, or rather sinking into it, after a soak- 
ing torrent of rain. 



Sen. Nothing can be more pitiable ! — but 
having now sufficiently defiled ourselves with 
dust and mire, suppose we pass to some of the 
less ignoble Miseries of the country; — I will 
shew you the way : — 

15. (S.) ' 

While walking with others, in a line, through 
a narrow path, being perpetually addressed by the 
lady immediately before you, who, although she 



MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY. 2Q 

never tarns her head in speaking, and a roaring 
wind, from behind, flies away with every syllable 
as it is uttered, seems to consider you as provok- 
ingly stupid for making her repeat her words twenty 
times over. 

16. (S.) 

The flaccidity of mind with which you attempt 
to flog yourself up into an inclination to work in 
your garden, for the sake of exercise : — 

" Ligonibus duns humum 
Exhauriebat, ingemens laboribus." Hor, 



Tes. Nay, there are worse things about a 
garden than that, I can tell you : 

17. (T.) 
On paying a visit to your garden in the morn- 
ing for the purpose of regaling your eye and nose 
with the choice ripe fruit with which it had 
abounded the day before, finding that the whole 
produce ef every tree and bush has been carefully 
gathered — in the night ! 

IS. (S.) 
The delights of hay-time ! as follows : — After 
having cut down every foot of grass upon your 
grounds, on the most solemn assurances of the 



80 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Barometer that there is nothing to fear — after 
having dragged the whole neighbourhood for every 
man, woman, and child, that love or money could 
procure, and thrust a rake, or a pitch-fork, into 
the hand of every servant in your family, from the 
housekeeper to the scullion — after having long 
overlooked and animated their busy labours, and 
seen the exuberant produce turned and re-turned 
under a smiling sun, till every blade is as dry as a 
bone, and as sweet as a rose — after having exult- 
ingly counted one rising haycock after another, and 
drawn to the spot every seizable horse and cart, all 
now standing in readiness to carry home the vege- 
table treasure, as fast as it can be piled — at such a 
-golden moment as this, Mr. Testy, to see volume 
upon volume of black, heavy clouds suddenly 
rising, and advancing, in frowning columns, from 
the South West ; as if the sun had taken half the 
Zodiac — from Leo to Aquarius — at a leap : — they 
halt — they muster directly over head ; — at the sig- 
nal of a thunder-clap, they pour down their con- 
tents with a steady perpendicular discharge, and the 
assault is continued, without a moments pause, 
till every meadow is completely got under, and the 
whole scene of action is a swamp. When the 
enemy has performed his commission by a total 
defeat of your hopes, when he has completely 



MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY. SI 

siyept the field, and scattered your -whole party in 
a panic-flight, he suddenly breaks up his forces, 
and quits the ground ; leaving you to comfort and 
amuse yourself, under your loss, by looking at his 
Colours, in the shape of a most beautiful rainbow, 
which he displays in his rear. 

19- (T.) 
In your evening walk — being closely followed, 
for half an hour, by a large bull-dog (without his 
master } ) who keeps up a stifled growl, with his 
muzzle nuzzling about your calf, as if choosing out 
.the fleshiest bite : — no bludgeon. 

20. (S.) 

Losing your way, on foot, at night, in a storm of 
wind and rain — and this, immediately after leaving 
^ merry fire-side. 

SI. (S.) 
While you are laughing, or talking wildly to 
yourself, in walking, suddenly seeing a person steal 
close by you, who, you are sure, must have heard 
it all; then, in an agony of shame, making a 
wretched attempt to sing, in a voice as like your 
talk as possible, in hopes of making your hearer 
think that jou had been only singing all the while. 



32 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

Tes. A forlorn hope, indeed ! — if J had 
been your hearer, I should have said, by way 
of relieving your embarrassment, u Si loqueris, 
" cantas ; si cantas, cantas male." 

9§p (S.) 

In attempting to spring carelessly, with the help 
of one hand, over a five-barred gate, by way of 
shewing your activity to a party of ladies behind 
you (whom you affect not to have observed,) blun- 
deii ng upon your nose on the other side. 



Tes. Ha! ha! ha! 



" viribus ille 



Confisus, periit, admiiandisque lacertis." Jut. 

23. (S.) 

In walking out to dinner, clean and smart, be- 
coming hot with your exercise, the consciousness 
of which makes you still hotter—so that, on arriv- 
ing, too late to repair yourself, you are obliged to 
sit down to table with a large party, (each of whom 
is clean and fresh,) with plastered hair — red, var- 
nished face — -and black coat besilvered all over 
with liquid spangles of powder and pomatum. 



MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY- S3 

24. (T.) 

Venturing upon a pinch of high dried Irish, in 
the open air — a sudden puff of wind emptying your 
box into your eyes, the moment you open it. 

25. (S) 

In returning from a long, hot ride, being over- 
taken on a common, many miles from home, by a 
torrent of rain, which so completely drenches your 
heated body, that you are obliged, for the preser- 
vation of your life, to stop at some lone, mean, 
public-house, undress, and get between the blan- 
kets, while your clothes are drying : — then, after 
you have lain awake like a fool for a couplet) f 
hours, doing nothing, in the busy part of the day, 
finding, when you have re-dressed yourself, the 
rain increasing, night coming on, and no messen- 
ger to be had, by whom to send word to your 
anxious friends, that you must remain where you 
are all night. 

26. (T.) 

On a stubborn horse — coming to a no less stub- 
born gate, when you have either no hooked slick, 
or one with so gentle a curve, that it lets go its 
hold as soon as it has taken it; so that you must 
at last resolve to dismount, though you well know 
that your horse will afterwards keep you dancing 



■ 



34 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

for an hour on one leg, with the other in the stir- 
rup, before he will suffer you to remount him. 

27. (T.) 
Improving your coachmanship by driving an un- 
broken horse through a rugged narrow lane, in 
which the ruts refuse to fit your wheels, and yet 
there is no room to quarter. 

23. (T.) 

Attending a sale, from a great distance, for the 
sole purpose of bidding for an article, which, on 
your arrival, you are told has just been knocked 
down for nothing. 

29- (S.) 
On Christmas eve — ^being dunned by several 
parties of rural barbarians, on account of having 
stunned you by screaming and bellowing Christmas 
enrols under your window. 



Tes. O, yes, I know them ; — pay them, in- 
deed ! 

" sunt et mihi carmina ; me quoque dicunt 

Vatem pastores ;" 

says the caroller.— 

" Sed non ego credulus illis;" 
say I. 



MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY. 36 

30. (S.) 

While on a visit in the hundreds of Essex, being 
under the necessity of getting dead drunk, every 
day, to save your life. 



Tes. Aye, Juvenal helped you to that 
fancy; 

' " Et propter vitara, vivendi perdere eausas." 

31. (S.) 

After having sent from the other end of the king- 
dom to Hookham's for a quantity of well-chosen 
books, all particularly named — receiving in return, 
six months afterwards, a cargo of novels, of their 
own choice, with such titles as li Delicate Sensi- 
bility" — M Disguises of the Heart" — Errors of 
Tenderness," &c. &c. — Then, if you venture, in 
despair, oil a few pages, being edified in the margin 
by such pencilled commentaries as th^ following — 
" I quite agree in this sentiment." — u How fre- 
quently do we find this to he the case in real life 1" 
— " But why did she let him have the letter ?" 
&c. &c. concluded by the reader's general decision 
upon the merits of the book, stamped in one ora- 
cular sentence; for example, " This is a very good 
novel :"— or (to the horror and confusion of the 



36 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

author, if he should ever hear of the critique), 
u What execrable stuff !" 



2^5. Nay, you well deserve this part of your 
Misery for looking into such sad trash : 

M I, quaeso, et tristes illos depone libellos," 
Nee lege " quod quaevis nosse puella velit." 

/ will give you a country-misery, from which 
there is not a whit less wear and tear to the 
nerves, and where you have no possible means 
of escape : — judge for yourself. 

32. (T.) 

Following on horse-back a slow cart, through an 
endless, narrow lane, at sunset, when you are al- 
ready too late, and want all the help of your 
eyes, as well as of your horse's ^eet 9 to carry you 
safe through the rest of your unknown way. 



Sen. Very distressing, I allow; but I will 
shew you that the end of a journey may be 
still worse than the journey itself: — 

33. (S.) 
After having arrived at home, completely ex 



MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY. 37 

hausted by a long journey, and delightfully dif- 
fused yourself on the sopha for the rest of the 
evening, (as you fondly suppose,) — being dragged 
out again, within a quarter of an hour, to take 
a long walk with a few friends, who are " obliged 
to go," but who " cannot bear to part with you so 
soon" — the party chiefly consisting of ladies, to 
whom you are, on every account, ashamed to plead 
fatigue, as an excuse for remaining at home. 

34. (T.) 

In a very solitary situation — after having sent 
some miles off for a remarkably clever carpenter, 
whom you have particularly entreated to come 
himself, for the purpose of doing a variety of jobs 
that require both a nice hand, and a contriving 
head — seeing enter, in his stead, a drivelling dor- 
mouse, who just knows a hammer from a nail. 

35. (S.) 

In going out of London, being met and block- 
aded on the road, by innumerable gangs of the 
Carrion and QrFal of the human species, swarming 
home, in savage jollity, from a bull- baiting, a 
boxing-match, an execution, &c. &c. 

9f& (S.) 
Passing the worst part of a rainy winter in & 



58 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

country so inyeterately miry as to imprison you 
within your own premises ; so that, by way of ex- 
ercise, and to keep yourself alive, you take to 
rolling the gravel-walks, (though already quite 
smooth), cutting wood, (though you have more logs 
than enough), working the dumb-bells, or such 
other irrational exertions. 

37- (S.) 
In passing the door of a meeting-house, in a poor 
country town, on a wet week-day — having before 
your eyes the depressing spectacle of a handful of 
dried-up old maids, with sallow hatchet faces, in 
rumpled, faded, old fashioned little bonnets, and 
brick-dust coloured gowns, crawling out by ones 
and twos, stiffening half-curtesies to each other, and 
then moving off, (as so many pairs of rusty tongs 
would move, if alive;) one to her butcher's, to 
haggle for a bit of tripe ; another to take an hours 
walk of a quarter of 1 a mile, for an appetite, &c. 
&c. — Heigh-ho ! 

38. (S.) 
Living, or even making a stay, within close ear- 
shot of a ring of execrable bells, execrably rung 
for some hours every evening. 



MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY. 39 

30. (S.) 

Residing at a solitary place, where the return of 
the butcher, and the delivery of parcels, letters, &c. 
is so irregular and uncertain, that you are obliged 
to get at all the necessaries of life by stratagem. 

40. (S.) 

When you are two or three hundred miles from 
London, at a period of great events, — your news- 
papers delayed from day to day, by accidents on 
the road ; till, on their arrival at last, ail their in- 
telligence is musty, 

41. (S.) 

While deeply, delightfully, and, as you hope, 
safely, engaged at home in the morning, after pe- 
remptory orders of denial to all comers whomso- 
ever, — being suddenly surprised, through the 
treachery, or folly, of your servant, by an inroad 
from a party of the starched, stupid, cold, idle 
natives of a neighbouring country-town, who lay a 
formal siege, (by sap,) to your leisure, which they 
carry on for at least two hours, in almost 'total 
silence : — 

" Nothing there is to come, and nothing past ; 
But an eternal Now does ever last !" 
During the last hour, they alternately tantalize and 



40 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

torment you, by seeming, (but only seeming,) to go, 
— which they are induced to do at last only by the 
approach of a fresh detachment of the enemy,, 
whom they descry at your castle-gate, and to whose 
custody they commit you, while they pursue their 
own scouring excursions upon the other peaceful 
inhabitants of the district. 



TVs. Well, Sensitive, I must confess your 
last " groan ?> is louder than any that has yefc 
burst from either of us. 

Sew. Liberally said, Sir; it is bad enough, 
to be sure ; though your quagmire-scene runs 
it very close : a sufficient number, indeed, has 
been produced, on both sides, to silence the 
boldest of our enemies; — and yet this, as you 
say, is " rural felicity!" — but stay, Sir; lefr 
us not triumph before a victory; they will 
t>ell us, I doubt not, that we have contemplated 
the Country but on one side : — we have pretty 
well established our main point, to be sure; 
viz. that country walks, rides, &c. &c. are 
not exactly the roads to earthly happiness — : 
nothing but the ghost of an ideot could think 
they are; — but they will, doubtless, exultingly 
produce a higher class of rural enjoyments* 



MISERIES OF THE COUNTRY, 41 

under the names of Sports, Games and Exer- 
cises ; and if they should superadd the Do- 
mestic Amusements of retirement, they will 
consider the Country as completely set upoa 
its legs again ; — I propose, therefore, that we 
should devote a great part of the remaining 
period of our absence from the metropolis to 
a practical examination of as many of these 
expected pleas for the Country as may fall 
within our reach. We are, happily, each, 
tolerably skilled both in active and sedentary 
recreations; and by applying to them, for 
our present purpose, with unusual alacrity, 
we shall be competent judges of their real 
value in the scale of enjoyment. — Are you 
agreed ? 

Tes. Yes, yes ; don't fear me : — Rogues * 
they are ridden by prejudices ! but we will 
beat them, not only out of the field, but out 
of the house, too ; and, in truth, I find myself 
so impatieut to be at work, that I shall leave 
you without further ceremony. 



MISERIES- OF HUMAN LIFE. 



DIALOGUE THE THIRD; 

MISERIES OF GAMES, SPORTS, &C. ; AND OF 
DOMESTIC ARTS AND RECREATIONS. 



Testy Senior and Junior. — Sensitive. 

Testy. 

W ell, Sir, we meet still more in heart, I 
trust, than we parted ; as we have taken in a 
great part both of summer and winter for our 
Amusements, we shall hardly fail to find, on 
comparing notes, that our cause has realized 
a great deal of strength, both in and out of 
doors. 

Sen* Yes, truly, my dear friend ; I, for my 
part, have been sporting, and dancing, and 
singing, with tears in my eyes, ever since we 
parted ; and have brought you a pocket full 
of pains, composed entirely of pleasures. 



MISERIES OF GAMES, SPORTS, &C. 43 

Tes. I will match you, depend upon 't : — 
but you shall judge for yourself: — you may 
be prepared, indeed, for my first Groan, by my 
limping gait, and this bewitching swathe about 
my head ; it is but three days since it hap*, 
pened ; and thus it goes: — 

Groan 1. (T.) 

In skaiting — slipping in such a manner that 
your legs start off into this unaccommodating 
posture — 




from which, however, you are soon relieved, by 
tumbling forwards on your nose, or backwards 
on your skull—Also, learning to cut the outside 

edge, on shuts that have no edge to cut with : 

ice very rugged. 



44 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

2. (T.) 

Angling for twelve or fourteen hours, alone r 
without one bite, though perpetually tantalized with 
bobs; — or, when you have hooked a fine large 
jack, seeing him take French leave, at the moment 
when you are courteously shewing him his nearest 
way to the bank. 

3. (T.) 

On springing, at the ri^ht distance, the only 
covey you have seen, at the end of a long day's 
fag — flash in the pan. 

4. (T.) 

In hunting — while you are leading the field, 
adjust running in upon the fox, with the brush. 
fUJJ in your hopes, — being suddenly le& in the 
hwzh* or i& otter words,— in the ditch. 



Sen. Tremendous, indeed ! — this is accord* 
ing to Brownlow N *s method of repre- 
senting a man as " in at the death." 

5. (T.) 
In archery— the string of your bow snapping, 
at the moment when you have made sure of your 
aim. 



MISERIES OF GAMES, SPORTS, &C. 45 

Sen. Almost as bad : — this is the " &»»>» 
jcXaly*? £»<>ro" in a new sense. — But let us have 
done with what are vulgarly called u out-door 
amusements;" — one Groan for every principal 
field-sport may serve for a sample: — sports- 
men could produce a thousand more ; but all 
men are not sportsmen ; and we, you know, 
have to do only with general Miseries — the 
common currency of human existence. 

Tes. Common , do you call it ! Humph ! — 
if this is the common currency, I can only 
say, that, from some plaguy twist in our horo- 
scopes, you and I seem to have pocketed all 
the basest pieces. — By the bye, I have not yet 
done with the open air, and its amusements. 
— You must know that my youngest boy 
Tom, now at home for the holidays, came up 
to me yesterday, and told me that, having 
lately overheard us at our " Groans," he had 
bethought himself of setting down a few 
u School-miseries" — and so put them into my 
hands. I was pleased at the circumstance, 
as it served to shew, that even boyhood, the 
happiest period of man's life, — and school- 
days, which we are apt to look upon as the 
happiest part of that happiest time,— are by 



46 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

no means exempt from the general tax upon 
living and breathing: — nay, even my last 
little one, now at the breast, told me half aa 
hoar ago, as plain as a baby could speak it, 
of an infantine misery ; viz. 

6. (Testy's Baby.) 
A dry we£-nurse. 



Well, but now to poor Tom's list, which, I 
see he has entitled 

TEN SCHOOL-MISERIES. 

7. (Tom. T.) 
1. Waking, in a bitter winter-morning, with the 
recollection that you are immediately to get up 
by candle-light, out of your snug warm bed, to 
shiver out to school, through the snow, for the 
purpose of being flogged as soon as you arrive. 



Eh, Sensitive ?— I don't think the blackest 
beard among us can go beyond that ? — This 
Misery is what I would call a mental cold pig. 

8. (Tom.T.) 
2. Seeing the boy who is next above you flogged 
for a repetition which you know you cannot say 
even half so well as he did. 



MISERIES OF GAMES, SPORTS, &C. 47 

9. (TomT.) 

3. At cricket— after a long and hard service of 
watching out, — bowled out at the first ball. — ^ 
Likewise, cricket on very sloppy ground, so that 
your hard ball presently becomes, muddy, sappy, 
and rotten: — a jarring bat: — a right-hand bat for 
a left-handed player : — a hat, vice stumps. 

10. (TomT.) 

4. Winding up a top badly grooved, so that the 
string bunches down over the peg ; and, on your 
attempt to peg it down into the ring,- — " volat 
vi fervidus axis :" — i. e. it flies into the eye of a 
play-fellow. 

11. (TomT.) 

4. Your hoop breaking, and then trundling lame, 
and perpetually tripping you up, as you boggle 
along with it ; — the other boys, with good hoops, 
leaving you miles behind. 

12. (TomT.) 

6. The stocking perpetually coming down as you 
run, and bagging below the shoe, so as to be 
trampled in the dirt, (all, by and bye, to be 
snugly buttoned to your flesh,) and throw you 
down : — no garters, except twine, which you are, 
at last, obliged to use, though it cuts to the bone. 



48 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

13. (Tom T.) 

7. Being obliged to take a severe licking from a 
boy twice as big, but not balf so brave, as yourself; 
— then, flogged for fighting, because you, at first, 
aimed one blow, which, however, did not reach the 
long-armed rascal. 

14. (Tom T.) 

8. At dinner — the joint lasting only as low down 
as to the boy immediately above you :— you are too 
stout to eat bread, and so go starved, and broken- 
hearted, into school. 

[5. (TofflT.) 
o. Fagging for a niggardly glutton, who does not 
leave you even the scraps of what you have stolen 
and dressed for him. 

16. (tomT.) 
10. Staying in on a whole holiday, for another 
boy's fault, falsely charged upon yourself: — very 
fine day ; and the distant noise of all the other boys 
at play continually in your ears, as you mope, alone, 
in the house. 

" Sternitur infelix alieno vulnere, coelumque 
Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos. 

Virg. 

Sen. Well said, my noble boy ! — \\e will 



MISERIES OF GAMES, SPOBTS, &C. 4<> 

swear him, like another infant Hannibal, to 
eternal hatred against our enemies. — Mean 
time, having finished our survey of diversions 
abroad, let us walk in, if you please, and try 
whether the House has any thing better to 
shew than the fields. — The first article on my 
list is Dancing. 

17. (S.) 
Blundering in the figure all the-way down a 
country-dance, with a charming partner, to whom 
you are a perfect stranger ; and who, consequently, 
knows nothing of you but your awkwardness. 



Tes. That offence may be forgiven, how- 
ever ; not so the following : 

18. (T.) 

Entering into the figure of a country-dance with 
so much spirit, as to force your leg and foot through 
the muslin drapery of your fair partner. 



Sen. There I feel for you indeed! 

Mrs. T. (who during this, and- a few of the 
other dialogues, is sitting at work in another 
part of the room.) " Your feelings," Mr. Sen- 
sitive! — Deuce take it! — " my feelings/' if 
you please; — you seem to leave the poor 

E 



50 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

lady, and her ruined petticoat, quite out of 
the account ! 

f Tes. Pho,pho! Mrs. T. — the petticoat may 
be mended again, and there would be an end 
of that; — but nothing short of amputation 
would satisfy the Lady's vengeance against the 
leg, — However, Madam, I have another danc- 
ing distress, in which, I am certain, you will 
join, in your heart, whether you choose to 
confess it or not : — 

19. (T.) 

The plagues of that complicated evolution called 
" right hand and left," from the awkwardness of 
some, and the inattention of others ; 



Ned Tes. 

" Palantes error certo de tramite pellit ; 

Ille sinistrosum, hie dextrorsum abit" Hor. 



Tes. Again — 

20. (T.) 

Being compelled to shift your steps, at every 
instant, from jig to minuet, and from minuet to jig- 
time, by the sleepy, ignorant, or drunken blunders 
of your musicians. 



Ned Tes. 

H Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis " 



MISERIES OF GAMES, SPORTS, 8CC, 51 

Sen, I will now give you a bull-room 
*' Groan/' with which nothing in Holbein's 
f Danee of Death" can stand a moment's 
comparison :— 

21. (S.) 

When you have imprudently cooled yourself 
with a glass of ice, after dancing very violently, 
being immediately told by a medical friend, that 
you have no chance for your life but by continuing 
the exercise with all your might ; — then, the state 
of horror in which you suddenly cry out for " Go 
to the Devil and shake yourself," or any other 
such frolicksome tune, and the heart-sinking ap- 
prehensions under which you instantly tear down 
the dance, and keep rousing all the rest of the 
couples, (who having taken no ice, can afford to 
move with less spirit) — incessantly vociferating, as 
you ramp and gallop along, €i Hands across, Sir, 
for Heaven's sake !" — " Set corners, ladies, if you 
have any bowels !"— " Right and left,— or I'm a 
dead man !" — &c« &c. 



Tes. Why, to yoii y Sensitive, such a violent 
remedy must have been almost as bad as the 
disease ; though, to be sure, as your friend 
the Doctor had described" your case as so 



52 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

alarming, it was natural that you should try 
it:— 

" Non tulit hanc speciem furiata mente Choroebus* 
Et sese medium injecit moribundus inagmm.*' Virg. 



Sen. So much for dancing : — let us examine 
a few more domestic recreations. — Will Bil- 
liards give happiness ? 

Tes. I'll tell you :— 

22. (T.) 
Missing your cue at every stroke — ( u totum nee 
pertulit ictum.") — and this when you are particu- 
larly ambitious of shewing your play. 



Sen. Cards?—! will answer myself: — 

23. (S.) 

At the game of Commerce, losing your life in 

fishing for aces, when you had hooked two, 

and the third had several times nibbled at your 
bait.-^-Or, 

24. (S.) 

When there is a very rich pool, and you have 

1 A name evidently formed from Chorus y a com. 
pany of dancers. T. T. 



MISERIES OF GAMES; SPORTS, &C. 53 

outlived all the players but one, he having gone up 
twice, and you not once — losing all your three 
lives running. 



Ned Tes. 

Amid such mighty plunder, why exhaust 
Thy partial quiver on a mark so mean ? 
Why tby peculiar rancour wreck'd on me ? 
Isatiate Archer ! l could not once suffice ? 
Thy shaft flew thrice — and thrice my peace was 
slain !" Young. 



Or, as Dryden pathetically puts it — 

" Rich cf three souls, he lives all three to waste/' 

Pal. and Arc. 

Tes. Nay, Commerce is the best game upon 
the cards; for you may get yourself released, 
whenever you please.-— What say you to the 
case of a wretch, who detests cards, and whist 
above all, at which he plays vilely ; — under 
these circumstances, I say, what think you of 



1 Note by the Editor. It must be confessed that this 
complaint, by inuendo, against her Ladyship, for win- 
ning his friend's money, is but too much in harmony 
with Mr. Testy's usual habits of unpoliteness, 



£4 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

25. (T.) 

Being compelled, by the want of a substitute, to 
sit down again, as you are stealing away, to a 
fourth or fifth rubber, with an Argus — in the shape 
of a captious, eager, skilful, elderly spinster— for 
your new partner. 

26. (S.) 

In shuffling the cards, (your party all strangers) 
squashing them together, breaking their edges, and 
showering them in all directions, so as to make you 
long for a trap-door to open under your feet. 

27. (T.) 

A pack of cards which stick so abominably in 
dealing, that you unavoidably throw out three or 
four at once, and so lose your time, your patienGe r 
and — the deal. 



Sen. Music? 

28. (S.) 
Being accompanied by a player or singer, who 
is always at least a bar behind, or before you. 

29. (S.) 
While accompanying another on the flute — being 
distanced, in a quick passage, by having to turn 
over in the middle of a bar. 



MISERIES OF GAMES, SPORTS, &C, 55 

Ned Tes. 

u And 'panting time toilM after him in vain." Johns, 

30. (S.) 

Attempting, by desire, to play on the piano-forte, 
while your fingers are all chained up by the frost. 

31. (T.) 

In fiddling — a greasy bow : — or, a stiing (the 
last you have of the number) snapping in the mid- 
dle of a passage which you were just discovering 
the proper method of fingering. 



Sen. No, Sir, music will never do : — Drazo- 
ing is, at least, a quieter enemy ; — but that it 
is an enemy, we shall easily make appear. — 

Tes. Not so fast, Sir; I have another musi- 
cal Misery in store. 

32. (T.) 

After waiting an hour for a friend's cremona, for 
which you had sent your servant-— seein^ it at 
length brought in by him — in fragments. 

Ned Tes. 

" Heu, priscajfofe !" 



56 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Sen. Nay, young gentleman, if you are to 
quote so, you may as well throw in " Nusquam 
tuta Jides ;" as you, Sir, (to old Testy}) ought 
to have remembered in proper time. 

33. (S.) 
Hitching your knife in the gritty flaws of a black- 
lead pencil, so as to spoil its edge, without gaining 
your point : — repeatedly breaking said point in the 
operation of cutting it ; or, when you seem to have 
succeeded, finding that your pencil only scratches 
the paper on which you mean to draw. 

31. (S.) 

After having nearly completed a drawing of a 
Head, on which you have long been working very 
laboriously — leaving the room for a moment, and 
finding, on your return, that a sudden puff of wind, 
as you opened the door, has conveyed it into 
the fire, which is devouring the last corner of the 
paper. 



Ned Tes. 

" Quis desiderio sit pudor ant modus 
"Tarn cari capitis ?" Hor, 

35. (T.) 

Iii fitting a drawing to its frame, becoming so 



MISERIES OF GAMES, SPORTS, &C. 57 

tired of your own timidity in paring the paper too 
little, as to spoil all by one rash sliver. 

36. (S.) 

Rubbing Indian ink, or cake colours, in a very 
smooth saucer. (Or, what is far worse than this— 
nay is, perhaps, the very mightiest of all the mighty 
Miseries we are now recording, or shall ever 
record ) 

37. (S.) 

As you draw — to be maddened, through your 
whoLe work, with inveterate greasiness in your pen- 
cils, colours, or paper (you cannot possibly dis- 
cover which); so that what you have taken up 
with your brush keeps coyly flying from the spot to 
which you would apply it. 

Red Tes. " nee color 

Certa sede manet." Hor. 



Tes. So much for the Fine Arts ! — one 
Misery more, and I have clone, for the prer 
sent. 

38. (T.) 
Exhausting your faculties, for a whole evening 
together, in vain endeavours to guess at a riddle, 



58 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

conundrum, &c. though you are assured, all the 
time, that at is as easy as the a, b, c. 



Tes. Toy my own part the confounded 
riddle, with which I have just wound up my 
accounts, has considerably shortened my 
search after other torments; for ever since it 
was proposed to me (a full month ago), I have 
lost both my rest and my appetite, and neg- 
lected almost every other concern, in trying 
to find it out — all to no purpose. 

Sen. Nay, let it pass ; — you and I have 
neither time nor tranquillity for studying 
riddles : — besides,. Sir, life itself according to 
our views of it, is one great enigma ; and, 
like the other famous enigma of old, is guarded 
by — not one, but — a thousand Sphinxes, in 
the shape of " Miseries," which, like their 
predecessor, keep tearing us to pieces, all the 
time that we are labouring in vain for the so- 
lution. — Be quiet, then, for a moment, while 
1 shape out other employment for us. — It will 
not be denied, i trust, that we have now given 
the cause of the Country a fair hearing ; — but 
the Town, remember, will be thought to have 
at least an equal right to be put upon its tral, 



MISERIES OF GAMES, SPORTS, &C. 5Q 

and the rather, as men, having made it them- 
selves, will be naturally interested by the 
vanity of workmen, in its defence. Our pre- 
cious affairs among the fields and trees are 
pretty well settled ; and as our return to Lon- 
don will take place nearly at the same time, 
we can meet at a coffee-house, and, by favour 
of the delightful privacy of a box, cut off 
by a silk curtain from twenty listeners close 
at our backs, we may discuss in comfort, you 
know. 

Tes. O, yes ! I understand you — a dry rot 
take the house, and all that belongs to it ! — 
there, however, we must meet, I suppose, or 
we should not think ourselves in London ; 
and so I will attend your summons ; — if, in- 
deed, I should retain my senses, by the time 
I shall have employed them in collecting 
matter enough to equip me for the confer- 
ence. — In the mean time, I must go back to 
the harness. 

Sen. The harness! — how? 

Tes. How ! why to have another pull at the 
rascally riddle. — Your servant. Holla ! Sen- 
sitive ! — Another country comfort, which how 



MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

I came to forget, I can no: very well say ; as 
I enjoyed it no logger ago than last night: — 

(T.) 

D the 
_ _ . y are ex- 

ecrable ; but rinding them so intolerably tolerable, 
that even the most heart breaking sctnes of their 
:.\ you one hearty laugh. 



That's all— Tin off. 



MISERIES OF LONDON; 6l 



DIALOGUE THE FOURTH. 



MISERIES OF LONDON, 



Testy, Senior and Junior. — Se?isitive. (At a 
Coffee-house, ) 

Testy. 

Welcome to London, friend Sensitive ! — « 
and still more welcome to this quiet room — 
can you hear me ? 

Sen. If I cannot, this constant and cheer- 
ful noise of carts and coaches, which is said 
by some to favour conversation, will help me 
out, I suppose. 

Tes. Nay, if a man must be stunned before 
he can hear, the Deaf should lose no time in 
coming up to London ! — But how long have 
you been in this elysium of brick and'mortar? 
and what have you seen ? 



62 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Sen. Seen !— I am so full of what I have 
heard, that I hardly know ; for, of all ray or- 
gans, my ear, I think, torments me most ; — 
and yet I beg pardon of my nose, which, in 
London, seems still more earnestly bent on 
my destruction. 

Tes. I give you joy, however, of having 
found out that; there is some comfort in 
knowing which of your five servants is least 
busy in plotting against its master. — As to 
jme, the conspiracy is so nicely balanced 
among them, that I shall never be able to 
detect the ring-leader. All I know is, that 
whenever they may finish me, there will be 
some of my blood at each of their doors. — 
But you seemed, just now, as if you were 
going to be very eloquent upon noises, in par- 
ticular: — any thing much worse than usual 
In that line ? 

Sen. O, yes,— -if possible : in an evilhour, 
I lately changed my lodgings, to escape from 
a brazier at the next door, who counted his 
profits so very distinctly upon the drums of 
my ears, that, not thinking myself indemni- 
fied by the value of the intelligence for the 
loss of my hearing, I took wing at a moment's 



MISERIES OF LONDON. 6$ 

warning; — the only consequence, however, 
has been that of exchanging one old enemy 
for a thousand new ones* What is a single 
brazier to a legion of brazen throats ? But I 
anticipate— it is time to go to business, and 
] will lead the way, if you please, with a 
" Misery" which will too fully answer your 
last question. (Sen. produces his memoranda, 
arid reads.) 

Groan 1. (S.) 

While you are harmlessly reading, or writing, 
in a room which fronts the street, being compelled, 
during the whole morning, to undergo that savage 
jargon of yells, brays, and screams, familiarly, but 
feebly, termed, " the Cries of London" — dustmen, 
beggars, muffin-mongers, knife-grinders, and news- 
carriers included : — 

" Bombalio, clangor, stridor, tarantantara ? 
murmur !" — 

you having, all the while, no interest whatever in 
the uproar, except in the simple character of a suf- 
ferer : or, should you chance to have a wish for 
what is in^the baskets, or burrows, of these shark- 
mouthed bawlers, being necessitated to let them 
pass unstopped, from your utter incapabiliiy of ever 



64 MISERIES OV HUMAN LIFE. 

arriving at the slightest smattering in any of the 
infernal dialects in which their goods are uttered, 
and which they have palpably invented for the sole 
purpose of guarding against the smallest risk of be- 
ing, by any accident, understood ;^-and thus is a 
new Misery struck out for you, from your own in- 
dignation at their distorted ingenuity in devising 
stratagems for their own ruin — which must obvi- 
ously be the direct consequence of their unintelli- 
gibility. 

2. (T.) 

After walking in a great hurry to a place, on 
very urgent business, by what you think a shorter 
cut, and supposing that you are just arriving at the 
door you want — " No Thoroughfare" 



Sen. Not to mention the Misery of turning 
back, splashing along, at full speed, and fight- 
ing your way through the crowd; and all 
this in order to go the longest way round, and 
be too late at last ! — so that your whole ac- 
count stands thus : — 

" Negatd tentat iter via; — 
Coetusque vulgares, et udam 
Spernit humum fugiente" plantd. Hor. 



MISERIES OF LONDON. 65 

3. (S.) 
Stopping in the street, to address a person whom 
you know rather too well to pass him without 
speaking, and yet not quite well enough to have a 
word to say to him — he feeling himself in the same 
dilemma ; — so that, after each has asked, and an- 
swered, the question " How do you do, Sir ?" you 
stand silently face to face, apropos to nothing, 
during a minute ; and then part in a transport of 
awkwardness. 

*. (r.) 

Stumbling through London streets, in pumps, 
over hills of filthy snow, in the beginning of a great 
thaw, and occasionally passing over a wide, floated 
crossing, on a tottering plank, closely accompanied 
by a hqpping sweeper, who vociferously begs at you 
all the way, and keeps thrusting his greasy hat 
against your clothes : — no halfpenny. 

5. <T.) 
As you are hastening down the Strand, on a 
matter of life and death, encountering, at an arch- 
way, the head of the first of twelve or fourteen 
horses, who, you know, must successively strain up 
with an over-loaded coal-waggon, before you can 
hope to stir an inch — unless you prefer bedevilling 



66 MISERIES OF HUMAaY LIFE. 

your white stockings, and clean shoes, by scamper- 
ing and crawling, among, and under, coaches, sca- 
vengers' carts, &C.&.C. in the middle, of the street, 

Ms.) 

A bad Sunday in the city. 

7. (S.) 
Walking, side by side, half over London, with a 
cart containing a million of iron bars, which you 
must out-bray, if you can, in order to make your 
companion hear a word you have further to say 
upon the subject you were earnestly discussing, 
before you were joined by this? infernal article of 
commerce. 



Tes. Nay, I have a case of intrusion within 
doors, (and one too which we are every mo- 
ment in danger of suffering where we now 
sit,) still worse than yours : — 

8. (T.) 
While you are peaceably reading your paper at a 
coffee-house — two friends, perfect strangers to you, 
squatting themselves down at your right and left 
hand, and talking across you, for an hour, over their 
private concerns. • 



MISERIES OF LONDON. 67 

9- (S.) 

While on a short visit to London — the hurry and 
ferment — the crossing and jostling — the missing and 
marring — which incessantly happen among all your 
engagements, purposes, and promises, both of bu- 
siness and pleasure — at home and abroad — from 
morning till midnight; — obstacles equally perverse, 
unexpected, unaccountable, innumerable, and in- 
tolerable, springing up like mushrooms through 
every step of your progress. Then, (when you 
are at last leaving London,) on asking yourself the 
question whether any thing has been neglected, or 
forgotten, receiving for answer — " Almost every 
thing r 

10. (S.) 

As you arc walking with your charmer — meet- 
ing a drunken sailor, who, "as he staggers by you, 
ejects his reserve of tobacco against the lady's 
drapery. . 



Now is not this too much, Sir? 

Ned Tes. Yes, that's exactly what it is; 

and therefore you should have cried v out, in 

time, 

" Ne quid nigh miss I" 



68 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

11. (T.) 
Walking briskly forwards, while you are looking 
backwards, and so advancing towards another pas- 
senger, (a scavenger,) who is doing the same ; then 
meeting, with the shock of two battering-rams, 
which drives your whole stock of breath out of your 
body, with the groan of a paviour :— *> 

'■ ,, . -^ — m* . — — — rr-" ruinam 

Pant sonitu ingentem, perfractaque . 

Pectora pectoribus rumpunt." * 

At length after a mutual burst of execrations, yo» 
each move, for several minutes, from side to side, 
with the same motion, in endeavouring to pass on. 

12. (T.) 
In going out to dinner, (already ioo late,) your 

carriage delayed by 'djam of* coaches 

Ned Tes. Jam, jamque magis cunctantem ! 

Tes. ..,.. which choak up the whole street, and 
allow you at least an hour more than you require^ 
to sharpen your wits for table talk. 

1 " Breast against foreast, with ruinous assault, 
P AiwJ deaf ning shock, they come." 



MISERIES OF LONDON. 69 

13. (S.) 

Dressing at a coffee-house, in a great hurry, to 
dine out, and on your arrival at your friend's house, 
suddenly finding that you have nothing in any of 
your pockets ; — then, the flash of horror that runs 
through you, as you recollect that you have invo- 
luntarily confided your watch, pocket-book, love- 
letters, and uncounted cash and notes to the care 
of the public^ by leaving them on the table of the 
coffee-room in which yoa hastily changed your 
coat and waistcoats # 

14. (S.)> 

On your entrance at a formal dinner-party — 
in reaching up your hat to a high peg in the hall, 
bursting your coat, from the arm-hole to the 
pocket. 



Tes. Aye — that comes of "appeiens ni'rois 
ardua/' — you see. 

15. (T.) 
On leaving the house, at which you have 
been visiting, finding that a rascal has taken your 
new hat, and left you his old one; which, on the 
one hand, either cuts to your scull, if you press it 
doww, or barely perches on the tip of your head- if 



70 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

you do not — or, on the other hand, wabbles over 
your eyes and ears, and keeps bobbing on your 
nose; — to say nothing of wearing another man's 
hat, even if it fitted like a glove. 

16. :(S.) 

At night — after having long lain awake, nervous 
and unwell, with an ardent desire to know the 
hour, and the state of the weather, being, at last, 
delighted by hearing the watchman begin his cry— , 
from which, however, he allows you to extract no 

more information than " past clock morn-, 

ing !"— Then, after impatiently lingering through 
another hour for the sound of your own clock, 
(which had before been roared down by the watch- 
man,) being roused to listen by its preparatory 
click, and purr, followed by one stroke— -which 
you are to make the most of — the rest being cut 
short by a violent fit of coughing, with which you 
are seized at the instant. 

17. (S.) 

In attempting to pay money in the street— emp- 
tying your purse into the kennel— the wind taking 
care of all the /w/?er~money : 



Ned'Tes. " The trembling notes ascend the sky !" 

Alex. Feast.. 



MISERIES OF LONDON. 71 

18. (S.) 
Standing off and on in the street, for half an 
hour, (though in the utmost haste,) while the friend 
with whom you are walking talks to his friend, 
whom you meet, and to whose conversation you 
are delicately doubtful whether you ought to be a 
party. 

19. (S.) 

At a London breakfast — snail cream; not to 
mention the bread that accompanies it, which, if 
it be dry, chalky, musty, bitter, salt, and sour, 
leaves you, however, the consolation, that it is 
made " of the finest wheat-flour I" 

20. (S.) 

The tt/*intermitting fever into which you are 
thrown by being obliged to linger, the whole morn- 
ing long, amongst a crew of " greasy rogues," in 
the outer-room of a public office, from which you 
are called out the last — if, indeed, you are called 
out at all ! 

21. (s.) , ^ ; 

Chasing your hat, (just blown off in a high win<2,> 
through a muddy street — a fresh, gust always whisk- 
ing it away at the moment of seizing it;^-when you 
have at last caught it, deliberately putting it on, 



72 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

with all its sins upon your head, amidst the jeers of 
the populace. 

22. (S.) 

Going to the House of Commons, with an order 
for admission, in high expectation of an animated 
debate ; ' and after standing, like an ideot, five 
hours in the lobby, and sitting five more in the 
gallery, — no business done ! — Also ; being repeat- 
edly and roughly turned out of the gallery (like a 
dirty dog out of a parlour) on a motion for a divi- 
sion ; and, as often, shifted, on your return, to a 
worse place than you had before. 

23. (S.) 

Running the gauntlet through Thames*street, 
from Blackfriars to the Tower. 

24: (S.) 
Ditto through a long London market, in the dog- 
Jays — the odours of the meat acting as a thermos 
meter to the nose. 

25. (S.) 

Accosting a person in the street with the utmost 
familiarity, shaking him long and cordially by the 
hand, &c. and at length discovering by his- cold,, 
(or, if he is a foci, angry,) stare, that he is not the 
man you took him for. 



MISERIES OF LONDON. 73 

Or, — what is a somewhat similar source of 
agony— 

26. (S.) 

Finding that the person with whom you thus 
claim acquaintance has entirely forgotten you f 
though you perfectly remember him. 



Tes. Aye — as Persius says, 

" Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te .... sciat alter." 

27. (S.) 
On a sultry day, in London — being compelled 
by the heat to sit with the windows of a ground- 
room open r while an organ- grinder,, or ballad- 
singer of the basest degree, are exhausting their 
whole stock of dissonance within two or three yards 
of your ill starr'd ears ; — yet you cainot drive, or 
even fee them away, as they are paid for torturing 
you by some barbarians at the next door, 

23. (S.) 

On going in a hackney coach to the inn from 
which you are to set out on a long journey, being 
asked by the coachman three or four times more 
than his fare,, which he knows you must pay, as 
you have not a moment's leiiure to summon him 



74 MISERIES OF HITMAN LIFE. 

at the time ; while, on your return to London, . 
it would be too late — in due consideration of all 
which, he farther indulges himself in insolent 
language. 

29- (S.) 
As you walk the streets on the evening of the 
5th of November — a cracker thrown into your 
pocket by some mischievous little rascal, who in- 
stantly runs away, — then, in your hasty attempt 
to snatch it out, feeling it burst in your hand, after 
leaving your handkerchief in flames. 



Tts. Yes, and leaving you in flames, too 
at being disappointed of your vengeance 
against the young villain :— 

" Saevit atrox ■ nee teli conspicit unquam 
Auctorem, nee quo se, ardens, immitterepossit." 

Virg. 

30. (S.) 

In taking out your money in a hackney-coach — 
dropping the greatest part of it (and all the gold) 
in the straw; then, after grubbing and fumbling 
after it for an hour, finding nothing but the gaping 
crevices through which it must have escaped. 



.MISERIES OF LONDON. 75 

31. (S.) 

Treading in a beau-trap, while in the act of gaily 
advancing your foot to make a bow to some charm- 
ing woman of your acquaintance, whom you sud- 
denly meet, and to whom you liberally impart a 
share of the jet d'eau. 

32. (S.) 

Being a compulsory spectator and auditor of a 
brawling and scratching match, between two drunken 
drabs, in consequence of tie sudden influx of com- 
party 9 by whom you are hemmed in, an hundred 
yards deep, in every direction, leaving you no 
chance of escape, till the difference in sentiment 
between the Ladies is adjusted : — where you stand, 
you are (that is, I was) closely bounded, in front, 
by a barrow of cat's meat, the unutterable contents 
of which employ your eyes and nose, while your ear 
is no less fully engaged by the Tartarean yell of its 
driver. 

33. (S.) 

As you walk forth, freshly and sprucely dressed 
— receiving in full, at a sharp turning, the filthy 
flirtings of a well-twirled mop. 



Tes. Ah ! the jade ! — Juvenal had never 



76 MISERIES OF HUMAN LTFE. 

been submitted to this mode of irrigation,, 
when he said 

u Nemo repentt fuit turpissimus ." 

34. (8.) 

The too violent exercise of being hustled in the 

streets. 

35. (S.) 

A footman at the next door learning to play 
upon the fife, or fiddle, and (besides other enor- 
mities in his practice) catching, as- you play them, 
all your favourite airs, which he returns to you in 
every possible key, and time, except the right- 
giving the Dead March in Saul as a jig; Paddy 
Whack as an adagio; &c. &c. 

36. (T.) 

As you are quietly walking along in the vicinity 
of Smithfield, on market-day, finding yourself sud- 
denly obliged, though your dancing-days have been 
long over, to lead outsides, cross over, foot it, and 
a variety of other steps and figures — with mad bulls 
for your partners. 

Sen. Yes ; or — 

37. (S.) 

Being called upon, in like manner^ to cut capers- 



MISERIES OF LONDON. 77 

at a moment's warning, by -a headlong butcher's 
/boy, who beats time for you by stamping close at 
your side on the slabby pavement, with his shrill 
catcal for your music ! 

38. (T.) 

Being accelerated in your walk by the lively 
application of a chairman's pole a posteriori;— 
his " by your leave" not coming till after he has 
Jakcn it* 

39. (S.) 

The manner in which a fish-woman unfolds her 
opinions of you, when you have unintentionally 
drawn them forth by overturning her full basket : 
" Loud menaces are heard, and foul disgrace, 
And bawling infamy, in language, base,— 
Till sense is lost in sound, and silence fled the 
place." Dryd. 

40. (S.) 
During the endless time that you are kept wait- 
ing at a door in a ^ carriage, while the ladies are 
shopping, having your impatience soothed by the 
setting of a saw, close at your ear. 



I 



Ned Tes. 



u From the table of my memory 
I'll wipe away all saws" Shak* 



78 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

• . 41 '' fr)..' I . 
Your bat, and part of your head poked off 
from behind, without notice or apology, by an huge 
beam a quarter of a mile in length, as its bearers 
blindly blunder along with it. 



Sen. O intolerable ! — a Quaker at court -is 
far better off; for, though his hat is lugged 
off by others unceremoniously enough, yet, 
I understand, they always make a point of 
leaving all the head behind. 

42. (T.) 

Crouching and crawling through the scaffoldings, 
ladders, rubbish, flying smother, tumbling bricks, 
tVc. of a half-ruined house — and all this without 
having made your will* 

43. (S.) 

. The meridian midnight of a thick London fog, — 
leaving you no method of distinguishing between 
the pavement, and the middle of the street ; much 
less between one street and another-r-the "pal- 
pable obscure" pursuing you into your parlour, 
and bed-chamber, till you can neither see, speak, 
nor breathe. 



MISERIES OF LONDON. 79 

Tes. Aye, I am quite at home in that mi- 
sery ; I had nearly lost poor Mrs, Testy in such 
a nasty cloud last week : we were somehow, 
parted by the crowds and there was she, poor 
soul, crying out, (in her language I mean,)* 

" Jamque vale ! feror ingenti circundata.nocte, 
Invalidasque tibi tendens lieu ! nan tua, palmas, 



Sen. 

Dixit, et ex oculis subito, ceu fumus in auras 
Commixtus tenues, fugit diversa, neque ilium 
Prensantem ncquicquam umbras, et ruuita volentem 
Dicere prseterea vidit !" VirgS 



Tes. And so, here, I perceive, we are both 
shutting up our black books. 

Sen. Yes. — Well, then, Mr. Testy, are 
any of these adventures, think you, likely to 

1 " And now, farewell !-*By deepest night clos'd round, 

Far am I borne away, and stretch to thee 

My pow'rless hands! — Ah me ! now thine no more ! — 

She said ; and sudden melted from his view 

In flight dispers'd, as smoke dissolving blends 

Into thin air ; nor longer him discerns 

Clasping the shades in vain, and eager still 

To speak innumerable tilings./' 



BO MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

remove the impressions under which we came 
up to London ? 

Tes. Remove them ! — I will soon shew you 
my opinion upon that point, by hurrying out 
of it tomorrow morning; for vile as the coun- 
try is, in most respects, yet, to give it its due, 
you can generally breathe the air ; — you can 
hear yourself speak, — though there is nobody 
to speak to ; — there is no bad smell in some of 
the flowers ;— you can see an inch before your 
nose; — and you can bear to look at your 
hands for at least half an hour after you have 
washed them. How hospitably the five senses 
are entertained in London, we have pretty 
well seen ; — and yet it is principally to have 
the said senses tickled, that the boobies come 
swarming up to it as they do. 

Sen. It is so— which leads me to hope 
that you will not actually depart quite so 
hastily as you have planned; for the lovers 
of London would have us think that the eye 
and ear, at least, are better off in the metro- 
polis than in any other spot on the globe : 
now, as you and I, you know, are hunting 
life through, in order to ascertain whether 
any thing which it offers can be eadured, we 



MISERIES OF LONDON. 81 

owe just so much respect to general opinion, 
as to take what are called the Public Places 
in our way. 

Tes. I won't stay an hour longer than I 
have mentioned, Sensitive ;— no, not if they 
would make over to me both the theatres, and 
the opera-house into the bargain, including 
all their profits for fifty years to come. — ~ 
Besides, Sir, I have peeped m at most of them 
already, and have never forgiven the fellows 
at the door for not returning me my money 
as I hastened out again. 

Sen. Nay, then, my good friend, what will 
become of our main concern? How shall we 
be able to make it out to our own satisfaction 
that we are completely wretched, if there be 
some sources of supposed delight which we 
have never fairly tried ? 

1'es. It does not signify, Sensitive; I tell 
you ie I have been >;*— * been quite enough to 
enable me to make up my mind : one set of 
puppets is very like another, I suppose ; — and 
so, once more, I am off by day-break tomor- 
row morning : 

" This deed I'll do, — before this purpose cool ;— 
But no more Sights.*' Macb* 

Q 



§2 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

Sen. Well,- Sir, since you are so inflexible, 
I must fill up the deficiency of your evidence 
as well as I am able, by making the round of 
revels by myself. By the time I have gone 
through my duty, it is to be hoped you will 
have cooled a little, and that you will then 
consent to return hither for a single day, at 
least, that I may not wholly lose the few 
ideas you have given yourself an opportunity 
of forming upon the subject of London Di- 
versions. 

Tes. In the suburbs, Sir — in the suburbs, 
perhaps I may ; or rather, at one of the vil- 
lages a little farther off: but no more im- 
prisonment within the Liberties of London 
and Westminster for me ! — and so, thanking 
you for having strung yourself np to relaxa- 
tion for the good of the cause, — success to 
your pleasures ! — I will come this way when 
you call for me — that's enough; and as to 
the place of rendezvous — nothing upon a 
lower level than Hampstead or Highgate, 
I bes:. * 

Sen. Where you please, so that we do but 
meet, to club our lamentations. 



MISERIES OF PUBLIC PLACES, &C. 83 



DIALOGUE THE FIFTH. 

MISERIES OF PUBLIC PLACES OF ENTER- 
TAINMENT. 



Testy, Senior and Junior. — Sensitive. (Testy* s 
house at liighgate, to which he had removed 
after his late sudden departure from London.) 

Testy. 

Vjfive you joy, friend Sensitive, of having 
come out alive from all the holes of happiness 
in which von have been stiving for the last 
two or three months ! — One comfort, however, 
attending our pursuits, is that they must pay, 
either in plague or profit. 

Sen. Ah, Sir ! you would not have allowed 
much weight to plague in the scale of advantage, 
had you gone through it in the manner I have 



84 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

done: — in plain truth, I can now almost for- 
give you for having taken flight so suddenly. 
In short, Mr. Testy, I have paid down half 
my income, for the privilege of being able to 
assert, that the only period of ease which is to 
be felt in theatres, concert-rooms, &c. is that 
in which you are returning to the door — and 
even this is subject to the draw-back of being 
obliged to labour through a mass of human 
flesh in your way to it — unless you prefer 
perishing with cold, by remaining to the last. 
—Yes, Sir, I accept your congratulations on 
having escaped with life from this perilous 
course of evening experiments, and am now 
ready to instruct you in their horrible results; 
rouse your courage, then, while I proceed to 
open Pandora's box upon you — and this 
without even an outline of Hope traced at 
the bottom. 

Groan 1. (S.) 

On going to the play to see a favourite performer, 
—to be told, at the drawing up of the curtain, (as 
you had augured from the rueful bow of the speaker,) 
that he, or she, is suddenly taken ill, or dead, and 
that Mr. or Miss (the hacks of the 



MISERIES OF PUBLIC PLACES, &C. 85 

house) has kindly undertaken to try to read the 
part at live minutes notice. 

2. (S-) 

In the pit, at the -opera — a broad-shouldered 
fellow, seven feet high, seated immediately before 
you, during the whole of the ballet. 

3. (S.) 

"While sitting in a front row of the front boxes, 
during the deepest part of the tragedy — yourself 
and friends suddenly required to stand up, and 
crowd back upon each other, while you hold up 
the seat for a large party in procession, who take up 
twenty minutes in getting down to their places, in 
one of which you had seated yourself by mistake, 
and consequently are now turned out, and have to 
tread back your way into the lobby, over the laps 
of ladies without a chance for another seat. 

4. (S.) 

At a concert — as you are preparing to listen to 
one of Bartleman's best songs, being suddenly en- 
vironed by a crew of savages, whose laughter and 
gabble are all that you are allowed to hear. 

5. (S.) 

After the play, on a raw wet night, with a party 



86 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

of ladies,— fretting and freezing in the cuter lob- 
bies, and at the street-doors of the theatre, among 
chair-men, barrow-women, yelling link-boys, and 
other human refuse, in endless attempts to find out 
your servant, or carriage, which, when found at last, 
cannot be drawn up nearer than a furlong, from 
the door, 

6. (S.) 

Pushing in with an immense crowd at a narrow 
door, through which such another crowd is push- 
ing out : — thermometer at 95, or &. 

7. (S.) 

After the play — to be detained with your party 
in the house, on a frosty night, till the last of the 
company, as well as of the candles, are gone out ; 
— the latter withdrawing their light, and then fob- 
bing you off with their fumes.. 

8. (S.) 

Your feelings put to the rack throughout the 
most moving scenes of a deep tragedy, by a riotous 
rascal in the upper gallery, who will not, for a mo- 
ment, suffer his neighbours to cry in peace — while 
you are perpetually tantalized with neglected pro* 
posals from the tender-hearted part of the audience, 
to " throw him over." 



MISERIES OF PUBLIC PLACES, &C. 87 

9- (S.) 

Your opera-glass, (which had been perfectly 
clear, while there was nothing in the house worth 
spying at,) becoming obstinately dim at the moment 
when you have pointed it towards an enchanting 
creature who has just entered. 

10. (S.) 

Sitting on the last row, and close to the parti- 
tion, of an upper box, at a pantomime, and hearing 
all the house laughing around you, while you 
strain your wrists, neck and back, with, stretching 
forward — in vain. 

11. (S.) 

In the pit, at the opera — turning briskly round, 
on hearing a box-door open close by you, in hopes 
of feasting your eyes on some young angei whom 
you expect to appear, and beholding, instead of 
her, that sort of hideous old crabbed-looking Crone 
of fashion, whose face is as full of wrinkles, as her 
head is of diamonds. 



Ned. Tes. 

" Who, like the toad, ugly and venomous,. 
Wears, yet, a precious jewel in her head." 



Shale. 



88 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

12. (S.) 
Going to Vauxhall alone — (without having pre- 
viously consulted the barometer)— for the pur- 
pose of joining a delightful party, whom you had 
appointed to meet ; your only apprehension being 
that you may possibly fail to find them out in the 
immense crowd ; — then, on entering the gardens, 
and eagerly throwing around your eyes ? espying 
only six or seven scattered solitary outcasts, stand- 
ing as stiff as pokers, and as grave as judges, under 
shelter from the coming storm — one poor singer, 
quavering, like Orpheus of old, to the trees, and 
two or three savages, from an almost empty or- 
chestra — the cascade locked up safe from the rain 
— the fire-works put entirely out of countenance by 
the water-works — and, of the few lamps that were 
originally lighted on so unpromising an evening, the 
far greater part shattered, or extinguished, by the 
wind and wet. 

13. (S.) 

Those parts of the entertainment at Astley \ or 
the Circus, which do not consist of pranks, or 
horsemanship. 

14. (S.) 

Sitting with an excruciating head- ache, to see a 
vile play, acted by viler performers, for the eighth 



MISERIES OF PUBLIC PLACES, &C. 89 

or tenth time, in a crowded back-row of the Little 
Theatre, with a dull party, in August ! 

15. (S.) 

The endless interval which sometimes passes be- 
tween the play and farce — and this while you are 
sitting by a lady, whom you consider it as your 
duty to entertain, but who does not consider it as 
her duty to be entertained; and, still less, to re- 
quite your attempts in kind. 

16. (S.) 

At the play — the sickening scraps of naval loy- 
alty which are crammed down your throat faster 
than you can gulp them, in such After-pieces as 
are called "England's Glory,"— " The British 
Tars," &c— with the additional nausea of hearing 
them boisterously applauded. 

17. (S.) 

Wading through those gossiping-scenes of a play, 
in which the lacquep and waiting-maids lay their 
heads together about the plans, and characters, of 
their Masters, and Mistresses; — or, that part of 

the opera, in which Signor and Signora — ' — • 

{we all know who) fill up the void, while Billington, 
Viganoni, &c. are refreshing themselves behind tha 
scenes. 



90 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE* 

18. (S ) 

Prolonging your stay in London, for the express 
purpose of going to the Panorama, on the report of 
a late change in the spectacle ; then, after toiling 
and puffing up to the very top of the building, see- 
ing at your entrance — what you saw yesterday ! 

19. (S.) 

Arriving at the Masquerade, long before the 
rooms have begun to fill ; — with the awful farce of 
lifeless buffoonery which presents itself at your en- 
trance ; — till, at length you have the average allow- 
ance of lethargic Harlequins — drunken Hermits — 
buckish Magicians — sneaking Emperors— august 
Pedlars — dejected Merry- Andrews — hoydenning 
Abbesses — drivelling Minervas — lusty Ghosts, &c. 
&c. — what little character there is, lying, exclu- 
sively, among the Dominos. 

20. (S.) 
After having fee'd very high for places at Mrs # 
Siddons's benefit, being told, on your arrival at the 
house with your party, that your box has been let 
by mistake, to the Duchess of ****, and that there 
is not another place to be had for any— bribe. 



MISERIES OF PUBLIC PLACES, &C. 91 

Tes. Nay, Master Sensitive, 1 can't think 
you have chosen your happiest Misery for the 
last; or rather I won't allow it to be any mi- 
sery at all ; for as your pleasure must have 
lain in getting out of these enchanting places 
as fast as possible, (though for a particular 
purpose, you had bound yourself to go into. 
them,) you ought, I think, to have considered 
it as a high stroke of good luck to have thus 
reconciled the satisfaction of having attempted 
to do } T our duty, with the still higher satis- 
faction of leaving it undone. For — to fetch 
a parallel case out of the Roman History — if 
old Regulus's opinion could be taken upon 
his own affair, I fancy he would tell us, that 
though he thought it became hirn to keep his 
word by returning to Carthage, for the par- 
pose of occupying that teizing tub which the 
carpenter had fitted up for his reception, he 
would have been oolite as well pleased if he 
had found, on his arrival, that it had just been 
let out, " hy mistake," to another gentleman ! 

Sen. Yes, yes; that is all very true ; — but, 
to whisper in your ear a secret, of which you 
may think I ought to be ashamed, — I suffered, 
for this only time in my life, the bitterest 



92 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

mortification at finding the box-door shut in 
my face. — If I am wrong in this, Mrs. Siddons 
must answer it; for, as long as she remains 
within the reach of my eyes, and ears, I freely 
forgive the shrieks of catgut — the bangs of 
doors — the whistle of catcals — the snuffs of 
candles — the lungs of the audience — the lazi- 
ness of the ventilator— the blusterings of ap- 
prentices — the critiques of my neighbours — I 
the y awning-time between the pieces — and 
the accumulated crimes of Author, Composer, 
Machinist, Prompter, Scene-shifters, Singers, 
Actors, and Actresses — for her dear, single 
sake. 

Tes. Much good may she do you ! for my 
own part, however, 1 don't at all fancy the 
proportion of being u dull for an hour, and 
mad for a minute;" — besides, the madder the 
minute, the duller the hour, with me : — I saw 
her once, myself; and I must own, she so ef- 
fectually conjured me away to the supposed 
scene of action, that as often as she finished 
her speech, I was within an ace of leaping on 
the stage, and knocking down all the rest of 
the Dramatis Personam for lugging me back 
again to Covent Garden — no, Drury-lane — it 



MISERIES OF PUBLIC PLACES, &C. 93 

was before she took her last flight from one 
stage to the other. — But to come to our chief 
point; — Public Places, Sir, are Public Pest- 
houses: — that's clear. — What next: — Have 
you any other experiments upon human hap- 
piness to propose ?— If you have, I hope you 
can contrive to suit them to my occasions; 
for 1 am just going a journey that will drag 
me over half the counties in England. 

Sen. Nothing can be more apropos : I was 
that instant going to tell you of a similar ne- 
cessity on my part; and as our plans thus 
agree, what can we do better than take me- 
moranda of the " Miseries of travelling V — 
a more fertile field was never opened to the 
wretched ! — You, too, perhaps, as well as 
myself, propose to take in what are curiously 
called Pleasure-excursions in your way ? 

Tes. Humph! — aye, so Mrs. Testy seems 
to think; and if so, I will punish her, by 
making her keep the diary of detestables on 
the road. — Any thing else to say ? — be quick ! 

Sen. You seem in wond'rous haste, Mr. 
Testy, When do you mean to start ? 

T^s. Oj in a quarter of an hour, at latest ; 



94 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

— I made up my mind to going, full two 
hours ago ; and don't remember that I 
ever loitered so long after I had resolved 
upon a journey, in all my life : — good bye to 
you. 

Sen. Stay, Sir, — one word more, if you 
please : — how do you intend to travel ? 

Tes. Hum — that's a cutting question, Sen- 
sitive; how ? — why, in more ways than one; 
and among others, 1 believe, if you must have 
it, in — in — in Stage-coaches — confound the 
scoundrels that first thought of them ! 

Sen. The very point to which I was lead- 
ing; — so, alas! must I. — Weil then; at our 
next meeting, we will first dispose of the 
more gentlemanly vexations of the road — 
those which will overtake us on horse-back, 
and in our own carriages — and next, as to 
these periodical nests of vulgarity, in which 
disgust is let out by the mile, — the Stage- 
coaches, — we will, afterwards, abuse them 
by themselves, considering them as the very 
climax and pinnacle of locomotive griefs. 

Tes. Well, well — as you please : — I leav*e 



MISERIES OF PUBLIC PLACES, &C, 95 

the arrangement of our plagues to you ; — 
as to the plagues themselves, I am secure 
enough of my full share — and so I hope yon 
have no " more last words," for I can't stay 
to hear thera. 



96 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

DIALOGUE THE SIXTH. 

MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 



Testy Senior and Junior. — Sensitive. 

Testy. 

uo ! here we are at last, with a private house 
over our heads, and the free use of our own 
feet again, for a twelvemonth at least, I hope 
— bidding a long adieu to Bedlam, in the 
shape of an inn — flying fields and trees, under 
the fine name of prospects — wild beasts with 
saddles clapped on their backs, and so called 
Horses — and a travelling trap for a sitting 
room ! — I shall really almost think, for a day 
or two to come, that there is some pleasure in 
being at home. 

Sen. Why, as in the one case your Miseries 



MISERIES OT TRAVELLING. 97 

come to you, while, in the other, you go to 
them, you are so far right, at least, as you 
prefer the least troublesome mode of being un- 
happy : — For myself, however, I confess I do 
not find my feelings quite so accommodating. 
At home, to be sure, we are ; — yet what is 
home, but a torment divided into three shares ; 
one consisting of the recollected Miseries of 
the last journey — another of the anticipated 
horrors of the next — and a third, of the sta- 
tionary stumbling-blocks peculiar to itself. 

Tes. Weil, Sensitive, I must repeat my 
aold confession, that you are a more dextrous 
.grumbler, where Mind is most concerned, 
than myself; for my part, if my journey, 
when it is over, would let Body alone, I think 
I could manage my spiritual part tolerably 
well ; — but here am I, you see, with a sort of 
traveller's lumbago upon me, from sitting ten 
or twelve hours on a stretch, (or rather with 
no stretch at all) doubled up in a box of about 
two feet and a half square, day after day, and 
week after week. I Teriiy believe ail the 
bones in my body have shifted places within 
the last month ; and 1 don't find that the 
rheumatism which I caught in my last damp 

H 



98 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE* 

bed, but one, seems to have shuffled them into 
their old quarters — and still less, the kick of 
a horse, which, no later than yesterday, took 
me across the ribs, by way of welcome, at my 
own door ! I have a long account, too, to 
settle with my Eyes, which were never worth 
a halfpenny, and don't seem much mended by 
a hot sun^ which took advatitage of my hav- 
ing left my green spectacles at one of the 
inns, to stare in upon me all day long, at one 
window or another, at every twist of the road, 
— But come ! what are you thinking of? It 
is high time to begin ; — you have not served, 
your memorandum-book as I did my glasses, 
it's to be hoped ? 

Sen. Alas ! but I have — and I have also 
lost many links of the sad chain of mischances 
which you seem to have been relating, by 
endeavouring in vain to recollect where I 
left it: — but it matters not; my memory, 
which never fails me in a bad cause, will serve 
as well; nay, so deep is the impression which 
my late Travels have left upon my imagination 
that I would undertake to record them faith- 
fully at a deferred conference, an hundred 
years hence. — As you appear to have a 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 9Q 

peculiar kindness for Inns, I will treat you 
with a choice sample of satisfactions in that 
walk of enjoyment. 

Groan 1. (S.) 

In the room of an inn to which you are con« 
fined by the rain, or by sudden indisposition, the 
whole day, finding yourself reduced to the following 
delassemens cle cceur ; — and first for the Horning ; ~ 
examining the scrawled window-panes, in hopes of 
curious verses, and finding nothing more piquant 
than " I \o\e pretty Sally Appleby of Chipping- 
Norton." — " Sweet Dolly Meadows V — " A. B. 
G. M. T. S. &c- &ci dined here July the 4th, 
17-39- " — " I am very unappy. Sam. Jennings/' — 
" Life at best is but a jest." — " Win* Wilkins is a 
fool;" — with " So are you," written under it. — 
* ; dam pit," &c. &c. together with sundry half- 
finished initials scratched about. 

Then for your Evening recreations: — After hav- 
ing for the twentieth time, held a candle to the 
wretched prints, or ornaments, with which the 
room is hung — (such as female personifications of 
the Four Seasons, or the Cardinal Virtues, daubed 
over, any how, with purple, red, and raspberry- 
cream colours— or a series of halfpenny prints, 
called u Going out in the Morning," — Starting a 



100 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Hare/' — " Coming in at the Death," &c. — or a 
Jemmy Jessamy lover in a wood, in new boots, but 
without spurs, whip. horse 3 or hat, with his hair 
full dressed, on one knee, in the dirt, before a coy 
May-pole Miss in an old-fashioned riding dress ; 
both figures being partly coloured, and partly plain 
— *or a goggling wax Queen bolt upright in a deep 
glass case, among the minikin pillars of a tawdry 
temple, wreathed with red foil, tinsel, and green 
varnished leaves — or the map of England, with 
only about four counties, and no towns in it, 
worked in a sampler by the landlady's youngest 
daughter, " aged 1 years,"— or a little fat plaster- 
man on the chimney-piece, with his gilt cocked hat 
at the back of his head, and a pipe in his mouth ; 
being the centre figure to a china Shakspeare 
and Mitton, in Harlequin jackets, at the two ex- 
tremities — after getting all this by heart, (I say) 
asking, in despair, for some books; which, when 
brought, turn out to be Bracken's Farriery — three 
or four wrecks oi different spelling books — Gauging 
made easy —a few odd vols, of the Racing Calendar 
—an abridged Abridgment of the History of England 
in question and ans\\er, with half the leaves torn 
out, and the other half illegible with greasy thumbing 
—an old list of Terms, Transfer days, &c. with Tax 
Tables, &c. &c»*— in each of which you try a few 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING, 101 

pages, nod over them till nine o'clock, and then 
stumble to bed in a cloud of disgust. 



Tes. " O, horror, horror, horror, horror, 
horror!" — I can never hope to go beyond 
this, and so you must take the will for the 
deed— and yet the following would have made 
no bad figure, had it stood by itself; you 
shall hear ;- — 

2. (T.) 

In riding against the wind — feeling a great in- 
sect dash into your eye — (" subito oculis objicitur 
monstrum I'*) — then, after carrying it home in an, 
agony, and sitting for an hour while the socket is 
rummaged with the corner of an handkerchiefs- 
your eye left sorer than ever, the animaljgseeming 
considerably grown, since he first took shelter under 
your " pent-house lid." 

3. (S ) 

Starting for a long ride, on a dinner engagement, 
without a great coat, in a mist, which successively 
becomes a mizzle, a drizzle, a shower, a rain, a 
torrent: — on arriving at the house, at last, com- 
pletely drenched, you have to beg the favour of 
making yourself look like a full or an empty sack,, 
by wearing your host's intractable clothes. 



mm > 



102 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Tes. O, I can dine out as provokingly as 
you can : — 

4. (T.) 

Riding out to dinner, many miles off, on a beast 
♦that will not quit his walk, while you know that 
nothing short of a full gallop will save your time : 
«-*-no spurs, and nothing in your hand but a weak 
stick, which you presently break into & flail; and 
this (for fear of being reduced to the stump) you 
are obliged to use more gently than before, though 
the animal would take more beating (if you had it 
to give,) than ever. 

5. (S ) 

On your return from an excursion to North 
Wales, the Lakes, &c. being asked by the first 
friend you meet whether you saw *****, naming 
the most celebrated spot in the whole tour— ^the 
only place, however, which by some villainous mis- 
chance you did not see, 

6. (T.) 

On packing up your own clothes for a journey, 
because your servant is a fool — the burning fever 
into which you are thrown, when, after all your 
standing, 'stamping, lying, kneeling, tugging, and 
kicking, at the lid of your trunk, it still peremptorily 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 103 

refuses to approach nearer than half a yard to 
the -lock v ■ •; 

7. (T.) J 

The flap of a limber saddle rolling up, and gall- 
ing, and pinching your calf, just above the half-boot, 
through a long day's ride. 

8. (T.) 

A very high hard-trotting horse, who sets off 
before you have discovered that the stirrups are too 
long to assist you in humouring his jolt ;— then, 
trying in vain to stop him. 

9. (T.) 

Beguiling a long distance in a carriage, at night, 
over an execrable road, with a drunken coachman, 
jaded horses, and frightened ladies. 

10. (T.) 

At an inn, after pulling off your boots, — the 
option of going barefoot the rest of the evening, or 
expatiating in a pair of boundless slippers that 
have been tenanted by a thousand feet ; and which, 
when you do wear them, (as you must in going up 
to bed over the wet stairs,) are stumbled off, and 
to be stooped for, when you are dead asleep, at 
every stair, from the ground to the garret, 



104 MISEEIES OF HUMAN £l?E. 

u. m 

At the moment when your horse is beginning to 
run away with you, losing your stirrup— which runs 
away too ; and bangs your instep raw,, as often as 
you attempt to catch it with your foot. 

12. (S.) 

In a summer excursion with a delightful party 
—having one Black Sheep in your flock, who, 
though he obtruded himself upon the company, 
neither enjoys fine scenery, joins in your gaity, can, 
put up with inconveniences on the road, nor readily 
falls in with your travelling arrangements — yet wilL 
not take himself away. 

13. (T.) 

Being mounted on a beast who, as soon as you 
have watered him on the road, proceeds very coolly 
to repose himself in the middle of the pond, without 
taking you at all into his counsel, or paying ^the 
slightest attention to your vivid remonstrances on 
the subject 

14. (T.) 

Sleeping — or ather trying in vain to sleep— at 
an inn, on the assembly night : your chamber being 
immediately contiguous to the ball-room, and your 
<ars assailed, till the time of rising, by the constant 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 1Q5 

din of feet and fiddles — not to mention perpetual 
irruptions of whole herds of Bucks, blundering into 
your room, full of jest, and roaring for refresh- 
ments, &c* — neither lock nor bolt to the door. 

15. (&.) 

On a solitary journey — arriving at a poor town 
at the time of the Fair, or on market day, and (the 
only tolerable house being full) being shewn into 
" the worst inn's worst room/ 7 the centre of which 
is occupied by a large round deal table, well slopped 
with beer, the whole apartment reeking with the 
stale fumes of tobacco ; — while you remain, your 
solitude is enlivened by the roaring jocularity of 
drovers, draymen, poachers, &c. &c. idling over 
their mugs by the fire side, and scarcely divided 
from you by a thin partition, 

16. (T.) 

A coach-window-glass, that will not be put up 
when it is down, nor down when it is up* 

17 (T) 

On arriving, with a foundered horse, at a lone- 
inn, with the intention of taking a bed, — every 
room occupied ; so that you are under the neces- 
sity of passing a frosty night in a chair by the 



106 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

side of a sullen fire, while you solace yourself, hour 
after hour, with a succession of abortive attempts 
to feed it into a blaze :— 

" But lo ! the burning fire that shone so bright 
Flew off, all sudden, with extinguished light: 
That other victor-flame a moment stood, 
Then fell — and lifeless left th* extinguished wood ; 
For ever lost, th' irrevocable light 
Forsook the black'ning coals, and sunk to night !" 

Dryd. Pal. and Arc. 

18. (S.) 

In travelling on horse-back through an unin- 
habited country, enquiring your way, as you pro- 
ceed, of different rustics, each of whom, besides 
giving you unintelligible directions as to your road, 
represents the place in question as many miles 
farther off than it had been reported by the last; 
thus making you seem to recede in your prog ress ; 
—not to mention your expense of time and temper, 
from their anxious and useful enquiries as to the/ 
point from which you started, together with their 
rigmarole wonderings and lamentations at the 
number of miles which you have travelled out of 
your way. 

19- (T.) 
After having, with the utmost difficulty, closed, 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 107 

and locked, and corded, your crammed trunk — 
being obliged to undo all, in order to get at some- 
thing which lurks at the very bottom : — this, two 
or three times over. 

20. (T.) 

Attempting to pencil memoranda in a curricle, 
on a single piece of paper placed in the palm of 
your left hand : — cross road. 

21. (S.) 

The moment of discovering that you have drop- 
ped a highly-valued hereditary whip or stick out of 
an open carriage, without knowing when or where. 

22. (T.) 

Getting up for a journey, with a racking head- 
ache, which has kept you awake till within half an 
hour of the time when you are called — the follow- 
ing scene having passed between you and your tra- 
velling companion : — 

a Mane, piger, stertis : — Surge! inquit; eja 
Surge ! — Negas. — Instat : surge ! inquit : — non 
queo : — surge !" Pers. 1 

1 You, snoring, dream till noon : — " Up I up!" he 
cries. 
No, no :— -" Yes ! Yes ! get up I"— I can't :— " Rise, 
Riser* 



108 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE* 

23. (S.) 

While on a visit, without a servant — counting out 
your linen (shaking piece by piece) for the wash, 
and drawing up, at intervals, a catalogue raisonnec 
of the litter* 

24. (S.) 

Going to an inn at Newmarket, Epsom, &c. at 
the close of the race-week, and finding nothing but 
dirt and confusion— empty larder — servants worn 
out and dead asleep, &c. and the whole town u as 
dull as a great thaw." Shak. 

25. (T.) 

On the road, suddenly rinding your stock of snuff 
exhausted; — then, on flying ta a shop in a country 
town, at which you are told that they have all 
sorts — nothing but Scotch. 



Ned Tes. 

" O Scotland 1 . Scotland!" 

26. (T.) 
On opening your trunk, after a long journey, 
discovering that the snuff contained in an ill-packed 
canister, has " burst its cearments/' and grimed 
itself into your clean linen, &e. 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 109 

27- (S.) 

In riding — after having dismounted in a solitary 
place, being refused by your horse the liberty of 
remounting him — no one being at hand to hold his 
head — so that, after many hard, but ineffectual 
struggles with him, he finishes the dispute by a 
parting kick, and so takes his leave* 

28, (S.) 
In seeing what is called " a Shew-house," — keep- 
ing pace, whether you will or not, through all the 
rooms, with another party, (Hottentots,) — by which 
means, besides having your privacy destroyed, you 
cannot hear (or cannot understand) what is said 
by one guide, for the continual counter-gabble of 
the other. 

29. (T.) 
On arriving at an inn, half-drowned, and half- 
frozen, in an open carriage, and eagerly flying for 
your life to the kitchen fire, as the warmest place, 
—being, every instant, humped, bumped, hustled, 
bustled, scalded, and scolded, from your post, by a, 
mob of red-hot cooks and scullions, waiters, &c. as 
they are in the full fermentation of getting up- two 
or three large dinners. 



118 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Sen. Poor Mr. Testy ! — there was both 
the " stare loco nescit/' and the « et tremit 
artus." Virg. 

Tes. Yes, and 1 have another shivering 
misery for you. 

30. (TV) 

In a bleak ride — to be kept freezing at a turn* 
pike-gate for half an: hour, while you fumble in 
your pocket, with a thick glove on, (which you 
have not courage to take off) for pence to pay ; — 
your fingers being so stupified by the cold, that, 
even without a glove, they could not feel the dif- 
ference between a handkerchief and a halfpenny. 

31. (T.) 

Evening relaxation for two, at a bad inn : — on 
asking for a back gammoii-board, seeing one brought 
in, in ruins — the men half lost, and the dice quite: 
if you are still bent on playing, you supply the de- 
ficiency of the former with wafers, pocket-pieces, 
lip-salve-boxes, cut cards, &c. and of the latter 
with bits of cork, shaped out as you can, burning 
out the dots wi{h a red-hot fork, which, in your 
hurry, occasionally jerks off, and drills a deuce or 
two extraordinary in your own hand — — 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. HI 

NedTes. 

** Even then this forked plague is fated to us* 
When we do quicken" 

This is Horace's 

" Periculosce plenum opus alece" 
with a vengeance ! 

Tes. I won't be interrupted, Ned! — (he 
reads on) 

deuce or two extraordinary in your own 

hand ; and when all is done, your dice might as 
well be cogged ; for, from the great difference you 
have made in the breadth of their faces, they turn 
up? 99 times in 100, the same numbers. 

32. (S.) 

Visiting an awful Ruin, in the company of a 
Romp, of one sex, or a Hun, of the other. 

33. (S.) 

At a bad inn — a very small egg brought to you 
in a very tall wine glass, at the bottom of which, the 
eggs lips and tumbles about, far below the reach of 
your fingers and the spoon. 

34. (S.) 

At an inn-dinner^— when you have ordered some 



Il£ MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

fruit, and received a sprightly " Yes, Sir!" from 
the waiter, which raises your hopes to the highest 
pitch, seeing, after a long delay, the promised treat 
set upon the table — consisting of one dish of mellow 
apples, a second of green medlars, a third of flinty 
grapes, and a fourth of withered walnuts — the only 
circumstance of reality attending }~our sham-desert 
being the very substantial price which you are made 
to pay for it* 

25. (S,) 

In a sketching ramble — a charming morsel of the 
picturesque breaking out upon you, with every at- 
tendant advantage of sun and distance— delicious 
catching lights on the principal objects, &c. &c. — 
then, just as you have snatched out your drawing- 
apparatus, and are in the act of striking the first 
stroke — seeing the sun quietly slink behind a mass 
of black clouds, where he sports oak for the rest 
of the day. 

36\ (T.) 
When you are on horse-back, alone — the outer 
bandage of a hurt in your bridle-hand coming un- 
done, and all the iest of the binders loosely dangling 
ialf on, and half off. 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING, 113 

Ned Tes. 

" felices ter et amplius, 

Quos irrupta tenet copula !** , Hor. 

37. (s.) 

After you have rashly ventured upon an unex- 
amined sandwich at an inn, discovering, as you get 
on, that it contains more butter (and that bad) 
than bread; and, for one inch of lean, four or five 
of stringy fat, 

38. (S.) 

On the road — one of the wheels of your carriage 
beginning to creak miserably : — not a ladle full of 
grease within twenty miles. 

39. (T.) 

Your carriage-horses all at once standing in- 
flexibly still, just as you are entering, late in the 
evening, upon Hounslow-heath, with half your in- 
come in your pocket, and no pistols to guard it. 

40. (S.) 

After passing many days at an inn, in a very 

remote place, where you are totally unknown, (at 

the Isle of Wight, for instance, where it happened 

to me } ) calling for the bill, at leaving the house ; 

I 



114 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

and, on applying to your purse, finding nothing 
higher than shillings and sixpences, and very Jew of 
them. 

41. (T.) 

Bursting your gloves at the beginning of a cold, 
rainy day's journey, on horseback, through an un- 
frequented country, without a glove-shop to be 
found in it; and so holding the bridle with wet 
frozen fingers dangling out of the torn places. 

42. (S.) 

Ascertaining— from the natural consequences of 
that mode of travelling— that one or two of your 
wheels have slipped their linen-pins ! 

43. (S.) 

In North Wales — after a long morning's ram- 
ble over Snowdon — on returning, half-famished, to 
your ill-provided inn, finding that the fowl and ve- 
getables, which you had bespoken for dinner, have 
just been clawed off the spit, and out of the pot, vi 
et armis, by half a dozen head of low, blustering 
rascallions, who had come in from their hilly ex- 
cursion, bellowing for food, a few minutes before 
you. 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING* 115 

Ked Tes. 

" At subito, horrifico lapsu demontibus adsunt, 
Diripiuntque dapes, contactuque omnia foedant 
Immundo : turn vox tetrum dira inter odorem." 

Virg„ 

44. (TO 

Discovering, at the end of a long and fatiguing 
journey, that you have involuntarily lightened your 
travelling carriage by leaving, two or three hundred 
miles behind, the box of letters, papers, account- 
books, &c. which constituted the sole object of 
your expedition. 



Sen. So, Sir; here seems to end the list 
of our politer inconveniences in the character 
of travellers : — and now, you remember, no 
doubt, the subject with which we agreed to 
defile our tongues during the remainder of 
our interview ? We were, in the last place, 
you know, to count the stings received from 
the various reptiles that swarm in and about 
Stage-coaches. 

Tes. Count them ?— -you don't mean all of 
them, I trust ? — not that I am going to accuse 
myself of having kept my accounts in a very 
slovenly way; but only, that if you expect 



116 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

the whole amount of the punctures you talk 
of, why, you might just as well require me to. 
deliver in a tale of all the pores in my skin: 
you'd belter have sent out Jedidiah Buxton, 
if he is still in the land of the living, to cater 
for « groans" along the road : he, who could 
multiply three or four long rows of figures 
by his head, might, possibly, have been able 
to keep summing up his twinges, as fast as he 
felt them ; but as for me, between my suffering 
and my ciphering, I should have counted myr 
self into a strait- waistcoat, I fancy, long before 
I had reached the first stage of my journey ! 

Sen. Gently, Mr. Testy. — I did not intend 
to overload you like one of the coaches of 
which we are speaking ; I shall be content 
with a few selections from the great mass of 
your mortifications — such as I propose to 
produce in my turn, 

Tes. O, your servant ! — those you shall 
have without demur — that is, if I can manage 
to spell out Mrs. Testy's pretty scribble here 
— do but look ! — it seems as if a spider had 
dropped into the ink-stand, and then crawled 
all over the paper.^-I am a man of my 
word, you see, Sensitive — I kept her close to 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 11? 

her task, as I said I would, through all the 
heaviest part of our journey, (which I need 
not say, was the stage-coach part,) and gave 
her a new pencil as soon as we got into the 
Fly— (the Fly ! — impudent dogs ! — I wonder 
it had not been the Eagle; our Jiight, you must 
know, was at the rate of about three miles an 
hour, stoppages not included ; — if they had 
come to me for a name, I should have given 
them " The Slug,") — but come — let's see how 
she begins ; 

MISERIES OF STAGE-COACHES^ 

Groan 1. (T.) 

Sitting down to a stage-coach dinner, at a vile 
inn, with the outside passengers let in upon you — 
and, as soon as you have begun to lose some part 
of your misery, by having helped yourself to some- 
thing better than you expected, the Coachman 
bursting in, and then bursting out, with " All ready, 
Gem'men !"— 



Ned Tes. 

" Libavitque dapes, rursusqne irmoxius imo 
Successit tumulo } et depasta" cibaria u liquit." 



Virg* 



118 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Tes. Well said, Maro !— -I could hug the 
dog for the word tumulo — a name for a stage- 
coach which beasts rumble-tumble, caterpillar, 
and every other English nick-name, out of 

the field. 

2. (S.) 

Travelling a few hundred miles in a stage- 
coach — I beg pardon— in a " Slug"— in which 
you, at first, found one very acceptable person — 
who, however, just as you have become ex- 
tremely intimate, leaves you, early in the first 
day's journey, exposed to a dull, coarse crew, 
who overwhelm you with gloom, disgust, and 
self-abasement, during the everlasting remainder of 
your jumble. 

3. (T.) 

After having over-slept yourself at the inn, (in 
consequence, of your bad bed having kept you 
awake two thirds of the night,) dressing yourself 
in a fever; then, on hastily pulling at your tight 
ill-dried boot, seeing your heel, and half your foot, 
come staring out, with a loud crash, through the 
leather behind:— *- in this unspeakable moment, 
hearing the last curse of the waiting coachman, 
as he furiously drives off without you ; in the midst 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 119 

of your bellowed intreaties that he would stop an 
instant longer. 



Sen. Not he ! — or he would not be a stages 
coachman : — 

Ned Tes. No : — 



-" frustra retinacula tendens, 



Fcrtur equis auriga, neque audit currus." — Virg. 

4. (S. 
Just as you are going off, with only one other 
person on your side of the coach, who, you flat- 
ter yourself, is the last, — seeing the door sud- 
denly opened, and the guard, coachman, hostler, 
&c. &c. craning, shoving, and buttressing up an 
overgrown, puffing, greasy, human Hog, of the 
butcher, or grazier-breed — the whole machine 
straining and groaning under its cargo, from the 
box to the basket. — By dint of incredible efforts 
and contrivances, the Carcase is, at length, weighed 
up to the door, where it has next to struggle 
with various and heavy obstructions in the pas- 
sage. When, at lengh, the whole Beast is fairly 
slung in, and (after about a quarter of an hour 
consumed in the operation,) plunged down and 
bedded, with the squelch of a falling Ox. and the 
grunt of a Rhinoceros, — you find yourself suddenly 



1£0 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

viced in, from the shoulder to the hip; upon 
which the Monster — when, in another quarter of 
an hour, he has finally pumped, and panted, and 
snoi tied himself into tranquillity,-— -begins to make 
himself merry with your misery, and keeps braying 
away, — totally callous to the dumb frowns, or 
muttered execrations, (" curses not loud but 
deep'') of the whole coach. 



Tcs. O the quaggy rascal! — how I'd have 
kneaded him with my elbows about the kid- 
neys! — yes — l ? d have given him a little bone 
to his fat; and then I'd have got all the pas* 
sengers, above and below, to lend me a hand 
in working, and rolling him to the door, and 
then lowering him down the steps; and so 
there we'd have left him, flouncing and wal- 
lowing in the middle of the road, like a 
stranded Grampus ! 

Sen. Nay, Mr. Testy, though, in the pre- 
sent case, I was the sufferer, and groaned 
sufficiently under the annoyance, I must beg 
leave to say, in behalf of my fat foe, that 
such vengeance would have exceeded all 
bounds; nor have 1 ever understood that a 
man's legal right to a seat in a stage coach, 



'miseries of travelling. 121 

is to be determined by weight and scale. — 
How, then, would you have proceeded under 
the following still more aggravated circum- 
stances ? 

5. (S.) 
On entering a stage-coach for a long journey, 
finding (amongst other pleasant inmates,) at least 
one muddling mother, with a sick — but not silent — 
infant: — windows all as close as wax, for the poor 
child's sake t 



Yon know me, Mr. Testy, and can con- 
ceive the state of my feelings on this occasion 
— I cannot tell you against which I was most 
envenomed — the child, or the mother. 

Tes. Nay, I hope you are not very uneasy 
under that doubt; for Virgil, who was in the 
same puzzle, seems to think it can never be 
settled, — one, he says, being exactly as bad 
as the other ! 

" crudelis hi quoque, mater : — 



Crudelis mater magis, an puer improbus ille ? — 
Improbusille puer— crudelis tu quoque mater/'— 

You see, he had been beating his brains about 
the matter for a long time, and yet could not 



122 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

make up his mind to any thing decisive, at 
last, — As to myself, I am always much most 
bitter against the brat : — in a stage-coach, 
above all -places, 

" Quodcunque ostendis mihi sick, (O that I could 
add incredulus !) odi." Hor. 

6. (S.) 

In one of what are called .the short stages, the 
long time during which you are doomed to reside 
at the door of one public -house after another, 
while the rascally driver stops to make himself 
drunker and drunker. 

7. (S.) 

While passing in the mail-coach through a de- 
lightful country, catching perpetual glimpses of 
the most picturesque scenes, or objects — from 
which, however, you are unfeelingly whirled $way, 
in the midst of your passionate longings to stop and 
sketch them. 

8. (S.) 

The attempts at Sleep which you make in a 
night-coach, under the following lulling circum- 
stances : — no night-cap — clapping your head, with 
a new hat on it (which you feel that you are ruin- 
ing for ever) against the side-pannel, from which it 



MISERIES OF TKAVELLTNG. 123 

is Incessantly cuffed and bumped away by the jumps 
and jolts of the coach — your knees miserably 
cramped — your opposite neighbour continually 
bobbing forward, in his sleep, into your stomach— 
the guard's horn frequently braying you broad 
awake out of your momentary doze — feverish rest- 
lessness all over you, &c. ; — then, just as you are, 
at last, sinking into something very like a nap, 
making a dead stop at the inn where the passen- 
gers are to sup ; when you all yawn, limp, shiver, 
and blunder along, in the dark, to a cold room, 
where you sit in gloom} r , weary, numb, stupid 
silence, waiting without end for the supper, which, 
when brought in at last, you cannot touch, though 
very hungry ; till at length, you crawl, jaded and 
grumbling, back to your endless, hopeless, haras- 
sing jumble — On looking out of ihe window at day- 
break, you find that you are just taking leave of a 
sublime or beautiful country, through which you 
have been stealing all night ; and entering on a 
dull, barren flat, which continues through the day 
— as it had done through the day before. 

9. (T.) 

On stopping at a public house, to water the 
horses, in the middle of a burning day, eagerly 
ordering something to drink, which the waiter is 



12$ MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

so Ions; in bringing, that the coachman will wait no 
longer; then, at the moment when he has driven 
off, looking wistfully back, and seeing a fine froth- 
ing tankard brought out for you : — coachman 
inexorable, 

10. (T.) 

In a coach which is made to carry but four, and 
is full, — being assailed by the most vehement im- 
portunities to take in what they call a lady ; leav- 
ing you only a choice of Miseries — granting, or 
refusing. 

11. (S.) 

Seeing at the door of an inn at which the coach 
stops, a most bewitching creature, with whom you 
fall, instantly, deeply, and inextricably in love- 
but who suddenly trips away, .and is succeeded at 
her post by a Harridan, with a face tattooed with 
wrinkles — the very home of ugliness and spite ; and 
who continues as the substitute of your channeij 
during the remainder of your halt. * . 

12. (S.) * 

After starting on a very long journey, through 
a variety of strange counties, discovering that you 
have left your road-book behind, so that you see 
every thing in pre found ignorance ; not knowing, 
whether the town through which you are passing is 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 125 

Kidderminster or Aberdeen, &c. &c. — the other 
passengers all fools, or foreigners, with no light to 
throw on the difficulty. 

13. (T.) 

Seeing and hearing the roof of a crazy coach 
groan, crack, and bend, over your head, beneath 
the successive flouncing weights of a dozen pon- 
derous passengers, who continue to " keep this 
dreadful pother o'er our heads/' by shifting their 
places twenty times during the journey, 

14. (S.) 

First, failing of a place in a night-coach ; then ? 
(your journey urgent, and no other conveyance to 
be had) the cool comfort of a seat on the roof, with- 
out a great coat, amidst a gang of wretches, while a 
sleety rain is just coming on. 



Sen. There, there, Mr. Testy !— in pity, 
]et us go no farther — though you, I see, as 
well as myself, have still a formidable list 
behind. — In our distresses of a more lofty and 
generous character, where dignity remains 
unblemished, we have hitherto been able to 
support ourselves under the severest torments 



126 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

of memory, which even in their worst extre- 
mities, leave us, still, the glory of falling, as 
it were, by the hands of the brave: — but, 
really, after having already descended to ac- 
tual contact with the pollutions of a stage- 
coach, to be thus poisoning each other with 
their posthumous effluvia, by a voluntary act 
of imagination, were to die like hogs, instead 
of heroes. 

Tes. O I'll have done, with all my heart; 
—besides, as we can believe each other with- 
out proof, you know, it is only so much good 
fortitude thrown away ; and so [ beg we may 
bottle up the remainder of our nauseous argu- 
ments for our enemies, against the day of trial, 
whenever it may come. — So then ! — upon 
the whole, friend Sensitive, between one sort 
of carriage and another, roads, saddle-horses, 
inns, and all — a rare round of wandering ad- 
Ventuies we have gone through! — who would 
sit moping at home, when he could be a 
traveller f 

Sen. Why, as you and I, according to all 
present appearances, probably shall sit at 
home for the rest of our lives, or take but 
short flights in the way of visits among our 



MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 127 

neighbours, I have just been scheming a new 
employment for us in our own way, which 
will be perfectly compatible with our dimi- 
nished activity as travellers : — I mean, that 
of noting down the comforts oi Society. Man, 
they tell us, is " a social animal;" — let us 
see, then, how he acquits himself in that 
character; and what advantages attend the 
practice of " going into company/' as the 
phrase is, which should hinder us from envy- 
ing Robinson Crusoe, who was under the 
fortunate necessity of reducing his visiting-list 
to a parrot, a blackamoor, and a few goats. 

Tes. With all my heart : — I have lately 
been over-run with cards of invitation with- 
out number ; and though I had resolved to 
say No to them all, and keep myself out of 
the way of being pestered with any body's 
freaks, or follies, but my own — and Mrs, 
Testy 's; I will devote myself, Curtius-like* 
to this gulf, for the good of our cause. And 
so, if I can contrive to struggle out again, " I 
will meet you at Phillippi," or whatever place 
your Ghost shall name — for you, I think, with 
all your mind about you, will hardly survive 



128 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

this series of pitched battles with other minds, 
which you have before you. 

Sen, I am under some alarm for myself, I 
must confess ; and especially as I am not 
much better provided than yourself with the 
defence of patience; however, when my shield 
is worn out, I believe I must imitate your 
example, and brandish a cudgel. — And so I 
leave you. 

Tes, Aye, to dress for Company, as / must 
— like two bulls tricked out for sacrifice :— let 
them take care, though, that we don't break 
our cords, and take to tossing — that's all 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 12<) 



DIALOGUE THE SEVENTH. 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 



Testy, Senior and Junior. — Sensitive. 

Testy. 

Robinson Crusoe, indeed ! No, no,— 
Timon or Diogenes, if you will- — these are the 
Recluses for me : — the privilege of storming 
and railing is all I have purchased by making 
my bow in drawing-rooms ; and I won't part 
with it for a trifle. — I have got safe through it, 
though; and so, ladies and gentlemen, your 
humble servant ! — tomorrow morning, I sell 
my house, and buy a hermitage. 

Sen. Nay, my good friend, what have I 
done?- — Let our doors be still opea to each 

K 



\ 



1 30 m TSERIES OF HtJ H 2Hf XTFE. 

other, at least ; if only for the satisfaction of 
groaning in concert over the evils of good com- 
pany — in which Imean to include, not merely 
the voluntary outrages we have been inces- 
santly suffering from our companions them- 
selves, but likewise the thwarting accidents, 
the perverse perplexities/ the unexpected con- 
tretems, with which Fortune herself, in pure 
malignity, delights to strew the carpet of 
social intercourse. — -I will open with one from 
this last mentioned class of distractions; — 
(producing his list) for, — excuse me, my 
friend — I cannot converse ; — " the genial 
current of my soul" is u frozen up" — my ani- 
mal spirits are poisoned at the fountain — and 
I am dead to every faculty, or desire, but 
those of pouring out the gathered gall th&£ 
frets within me;— 

" the grief that doss not speak, 
Whispers the e'er-fraught heart, and bids it break/' 

■Tes. Come, then — " give -sorrow ■words.'" — 
This is yoiir day, Sensitive:' — I, who, you 
know, am ah'nost all bbne and body, as the 
jockies say, can have little to throw into the 
hoard of spiritual solicitudes. Htfweveiy veta 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE, 131 

may judge from the fury, in which you found 
me just now, that I am not quite so raw as^ 
you rpay fancy, even in this branch of ciir 
business — 

" Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora." 

And as to your second division. of company- 
comforts, of a more mechanical kind, I have 
revelled in them from morning till night — so 
much so, indeed, that, to tell ypu the truth, I 
have been little in a humour tor the tranquil 
drudgery of noting them down in my tablets; 
— I have funded a few loose agonies, however, 
of both sorts ^ — and so as they are but a few, 
perhaps I might as well produce them at once ; 
after which, I'll give you your head during 
the rest of our way. 

Sen. Begin, Sir, tyy .all means; and while 
I attend to you, I will endeavour to rouse my 
courage for the severer retrospect to which I 
am doomed; — yet which, (by one of those 
exquisite paradoxes in feeling, wherewith the 
texture of my fibres'is so mystically interlis- 
sued,) I at the same time, long 

Tes. Whew !— upon my soul, you are a 
very fine sort of a — what must I call you ? — 
gentleman angel, I believe — you put my poor 



132 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

stock of straight-forward phraseology quite 
upon the stretch to reach after you ! — and so 
now/ if your Etherialty can condescend to 
take any interest in such earthly stuff as I 
have been able to rake together, I will go 
over a few of " the ills that Jlesh is heir to" — 
as I have lately found to my cost: 

Groan 1. (T.) 

In attempting to take up the poker softly, (an 
invalid asleep in the room) throwing it violently 
down, sociably accompanied by the tongs and 
shovel in its fall. 

2. (T.) 

Briskly stooping to pick up a lady's fan at the 
same moment when two other gentlemen are doing 
the same, and so making a cannon with your head 
against both of theirs- — and this without being the 
happy man, after all. 

3. (S.) 
On entering the room, to join an evening party 
composed of remarkably grave, strict, and precise 
persons, suddenly finding out that you are drunk ; 
and (what is still worse) that the company has 
shared with you in the discovery — though you 
thought you were, and fully intended to be, rigidly 
soher. . 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE/ 133 

4. (S.) 
A perpetual blister — alias, a sociable next- 
door-nei«hbour, who has taken a violent affection 
for you, in return for your no les3 violent antipathy 
to him. 



Mrs. Tes. To her, if you please ; — I am sure 
that odious Mrs. M'Call will fairly worry me 
out of my life, if she stays in our neighbour- 
hood three months longer. 

NedTts. 
" Vae miserae nimiura vicrna !" Virg. 

5. (S.) 

A fellow, who, after having obliquely applied to 
you for instruction upon any subject, keeps shewing 
a restless anxiety to seem already fully informed 
upon it ; perpetually interrupting your answer with 
— " Yes, Sir — Yes, yes, I know— true, I am per- 
fectly aware of that — O, of course !" — &c. &c. &c. 

6. (T.) 

Visiting a remarkably nice Lady, who lets you* 
discover, by the ill-suppressed convulsion of her 
features and motions, that she considers your shoes 
as not sufficiently wiped, (in your passage over at 
least twenty mats) — that you stand too near to a- . 



i 



l$4 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

darling jar — lean rather too- emphatically against the 
back of your chair — are in danger of waking Shock, 
by. speaking in too high a key., &c. &c. — till you 
begin to envy the. situation of real prisoners, 

■ 7- (T.) 
Tearing your throat to rags in abortive efforts to 
call back a person who has just left you, and with 
whom you have forgotten to touch oh one of the 
most important subjects which you met to discuss. 

8. (T.) 

After having been accidentally detained .on a 
water-excursion far beyond the time you have to 
spare, rowing homeward, against wind and tide, 
with ah appointment of the utmost consequence 
before you, which, you know, will soon be— behind 
you. — Their, in plucking out your watch to, see 
Aoxo muck too late you shall be, jerking it over ihe 
^ide of Hie boat, and seeing it founder in an instant. 



Tbeie, Sir ; I have clone; it is but a scanty 
budget bf disasters, you'll Say ; — but> to.go 
Back to our old distinction, what it wants hi 
iktmberyii hVake§ up in Weight, I hope. 

'Sen. Ttief are very " 'decent sorrows," Mr. 
Tesl^ jj d&rrt bfe discourage*!. — Whether mine 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL UFE. 135 

deserve to be considered as excelling them, 
it is not for me to determine; you shall 
immediately be enabled to form your owa 
opinion, for I have now collected courage to 
encounter the recapitulation. Take them, 
for the -present; in their rude state ; — for 1 
have not yet found calmness to digest each 
under the separate chapter of chagrins into 
which I have said that my social miseries 
resolve themselves. 

9, (S.) 

Suddenly thinking. of your best argument hi a 
debate, and, in your. eagerness to sUUe.it, swallow* 
ing your wine the wrong way, and so squeaking 
and croaking more and more unintelligibly, with the 
tears running down your cheeks, till the conversa- 
tion has been turned, or your antagonist has left the 
company : — 

— — - " in mediis conatibus, aegri 

Succidimus ;— non lingua vaiet, non cprpore Betas 
Sufficiunt vires — nee vox, nee verba sequuntur." 

• -Virg* 

1 ** We, 'midst our strugglings, fainting powerless, 
Fail —not tine tongue can do its wonted task, , . . , 
Nor in our frames the .well known functions serve, 

Nor voice, m$ will angulation coxae." 



136 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Tes. Excuse me for interrupting you — but 
I just recollect a slill worse case of the same 
kind : — ■ 

10. <T.) 

After having left a company in which you have 
been galled by the raillery of some wag by profes- 
sion — thinking, at your leisure, of a repartee which, 
if discharged at the proper moment, would have 
blown him to atoms. Or, 

11. (T.) 

Losing your way in an argument, so as to be 
obliged suddenly to hold your tongue, though, an 
instant before, you had the whole series of your 
reasonings full in view, and could you have brought 
them to bear upon your opponent at the proper 
moment, he must have been struck dead. 

12. (S.) 
Accompanying a fond father in his attendance at 
his daughter's " dancing-day/' at a petty boarding- 
school. 

.13. <S.),. . , 

After relating aii excellent story, or pointed 
witticism, to a strange company — the frosty silence, 
vacant stare, cold hums, and d\y'ka*s > with which it 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 137 

is received by the different auditors, of whose stoli- 
dity you had not been aware. 



Tes. Yes, yes, I have been there too ; — 
you might as well crack jokes in a dormitory 
at the dead of night, as in certain parties:— 
t€ Joco uti illo, quiclem, licet — sed sicut in 
somno et quietibus caeteris." — But stay — 
since you think yourself my master in story- 
telling miseries, 1 am determined to cure you 
of that mistake, though I break in upon you 
once more : — 

14. (T.) 

After telling, at much length, a scarce and curi- 
ous anecdote, with considerable marks of self-com- 
placency at having it to tell, being quietly reminded 
by the person you have been so kindly instructing, 
that you had it—from himself ! 



Sen. You have won this hit, I confess'; — 
but the game will be mine, be assured; — I 
proceed, and, I think, shall stagger you with 
my first move : 

15. (S,) 

After dinner, with a favourite party, when the 
cloth has been removed, and the wine of conversa- 



138 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

tion, as well as of the bottle, is just beginning to 
brighten, — seeing the door open, and a string of 
staring babies brought in, and carried round, to be 
caressed and admired, during the rest of the sitting ; 
— an outrage from which there is not even a bye* 
law, or dead-letter statute, under our otherwise 
happy constitution, which will afford you the small- 
est fedress. 

16. (S.) 

Coming in too late for a breakfast-engagement, 
and being contemplated in silence by the rest of 
the company, who have done, but who think it 
polite to remain seated round the table, while you 
hastily wash down your glazed toast and butter, with 
drawn, vapid, cold tea- — which, bad as it is, you 
prefer to the operose process of a fresh preparation 
for you. 

Tes. Breakfast ! — pho ! pho ! — dinner : — 

17. <T.) 
. Invading an humble regular family, (while quietly 
assembled round the dinner table,)* Upon the wrong 
fay. — On entering the room, you catch the ioot- 
man in the act of removing the cloth— now to be 
relaid, and slowly spread with the luke-warm ruins 
of the late meal, tumultously, remanded from the 
kitchen, half-rescued as it is from the clutches of 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 139 

the Hogs and Harpies below, and alternately sea- 
soned,, as you proceed, with stigmas upon every 
fork-fail you take up, and panegy ricks upon the 
delightful party with whom you were anxiously 
expected to partake it on the day before. 

18. (S.) 

Balking a good gape, by forcing your lips close 
together, in order to keep it a secret from a dull 
dog, that you are yawning in your sleeve at his 
stupidity. 

19. (s.) 

Paying a long visit at the retired house of a well 
meaning Soul, whose only idea of entertaining you 
is that of never leaving you a moment by yourself. 

20. (S.) 

Seeing a swaggering smatterer in knowledge en- 
circled by his levee of listeners, who blindly recog- 
nise his claim to be considered as an oracle ; — - 
pepetually, and bowingly, consulting him, and 
then patiently swallowing the response, like a bolus, 
without venturing to analyze it. - 

21. (S.) 

Being caught in the fact of ogling your charmer, 
by the tattling Tabby from whom you are most 
desirous of concealing your tender anguish. 



140 M1SEBIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

21. (S.) 

On making a morning call at the house of a 
retired old lady — all your conversation wholly 
giving way to that of the dumb creatures who com- 
pose her parlour-menagerie — parrots, mackaws, 
cats, puppies, squirrels, monkeys, &c. &c. — which 
open upon you all together, at the moment of your 
entrance, and never cease till that of your depart 
ture : — 

" At once, an universal hubbub wild 

Of stunning sounds, and voices all confus'd, 

With loudest vehemence assaults his ear — 

And tumult, and confusion, all embroil'd, 

And Discord, with a thousand various mouths V 

the good old Dowager seeming rather pleased with, 
so far from once attempting to silence, this hor- 
rible " strife of tongues." 

22. (S.) 
Finding that your sagacious servant has cau- 
tiously denied you to the only person whom you 
ordered him to admit, and who has gone away, 
without leaving his address; — or, that he has as 
carefully produced you to the single person whcra 
you had sworn him to exclude. 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 141 

■23. (S.) 

Keeping an old engagement with foggy folks, 
when strongly solicited to join a party of bright 

ones. Item, receiving an invitation of the 

latter kind, on the day after the party has taken 
place. 

24. (S.) 

Immediately after expressing to a person your 
sorrow at having been from home when he lately 
called upon you — incautiously letting out some 
circumstance which completely disproves your 
alibi. 



Ned Tes. Too bad, indeed ! — a man is ne- 
ver at a worse nonplus than when, like poor 
Darius — 

u exposed he lie 8? 
Sen. Yes, and you may proceed — 

u Without a friend to close his eyes !" 

as he looks the man who has detected him, in 
the face. 



142 MISERIES OF HUMA.N LIM.. 

25. (S.) 

The hour before dinner during which you sit in 
a solemn circle of strangers : 

Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa.silentia terrent ! • 

Virg* 



Tes. Yes, and this when 



\ 



26. (T,) 

"During that hour, you are waiting for one who 5 
on -his entrance, shews you the face of another 
stranger, instead of that of your particular friend, 
who has been invited to meGt you, but sends an 
excuse. 

27. (S.) 

Endeavouring in vain to 1 hear a person's remark, 
or question, addressed to you ; and after repeatedly 
saying '* I beg your pardon, Sir," &c. and making 
him go over it again, and again, still .not hearing 
him, — 
< l Nequicquam ingeminans, iterumque vocavit.''* 

and so being reduced either to look foolish, and 

1 Horror, e'en Silence' self appals their souls 1"" 

a in vain repeating, 

Again, and yet again he spake , ; - 



MISERIES OF SOCTAL LIFE. 143 

remain quite silent, or, in your anxiety to seem 
to have heard him, answering altogether & tort et a 
travers. 

28. (S.) 

The miscarriage of a letter announcing the day 
and hour of your visit to a friend; — so that, on 
your arrival on horse-back, after a long journey, 
(and this, too, from accidents on the road, late at 
night,) you find the family all a-bed : — when after 
an hour's bawling and knocking, you have, succeeded 
in bringing a servant to the window, and with great 
difficulty, convinced him that you are not a mad 
house-breaker, you are at length let in, and on 
exploring the deserted rooms, in search of warmth 
and refreshment, rind no better entertainment than 
— fires raked out — empty larder- — cellar locked up 
— no bed prepared, &c. &c— and to conclude, no 
stabling for your horse, nor any public-house in the 
place. 

29. (S.) 

In conversation — inadvertently touching -the 
string which you know will call forth thelonge^ 
story of the flattest proser that ever droned. 

30. (S.) 

After sincerely and heartily agreeing with one 



144 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

whose kindness you much wish to conciliate, in 
some violent sen.iment— finding, from his reply, 
that you have totally mistaken his meaning, and 
that he detests your opinion, and you his ; so that, 
after a feeble attempt to extricate yourself, you 
suddenly hold your tongue : — 

" Dixit, — et extemplo, (neque enim responsa da- 

bantur 
Fida satis,) sensit medios delapsus in hostes : 
Obstupuit, — retroque pedem, cum voce repressit." 

Virg. * 
31. (S.) 

Living with, or even visiting, one, whose feelings 
widely differ from your own with regard to the ad- 
mission of fresh air. 



Tes. Plain spoken enough, Sensitive : — you 
know pretty well that, upon this point, I am 
a mole, and you a camelion ; but I under- 
stand the hint, and so, as you have an extra- 
ordinary call for breath just now— -up goes the 
window. 

1 He said— and straight, from the reply unsure, 
Felt him 'mid foes betray'd : amaz'd he stood, 
And check'd his tongue, recoiling.—— 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE, 145 

Sen. Thank you,, Sir — though I am certainly 
innocent of the imputed insinuation. 

32. (S.) 

After having, with much contrivance, effected an 
introduction between two persons whom you con- 
sidered as formed to take delight in each other, dis- 
covering, before the first interview is half over, that 
they are centrifugal with respect to each other. 

33. (S.) 

The abortive attempts which you occasionally 
make to seem in high spirits when you are both 
stupid and wretched ; so that your mirth, like 
Macbeth's Amen, " sticks in your throat :" — 
perceiving, moreover, that the imposture is de- 
tected. 



Or — what is almost as bad — 

34. (S.) 
In trying to laugh at the heavy joke of a good 
man, but a vile jester, (" hilaris cum pondere 
virtus ") producing only that sort of spurious 
chuckle, or laborious ha! ha!" which you feel 
must betray you, even to the worthy Wag himself, 
though not at ail Of a suspicious nature : — then, 

L 



146 Miseries of human life, 

on being loudly asked by one of the company 
" what is the joke/' being driven to confess that 
you " do not know" — as, in truth, you do not ; 
having laughed gratuitously, (without hearing, or 
taking, what was said,) merely to pleasure the old 
Gentlemen, whose smiling eye, thrown round the 
table at the conclusion of his speech, had levied a 
general tax upon the muscles of his friends. 



Ned Tes. " TiXcoq ccy.ctigos h jSgoIoi? hivov nx>tov." f 
Frag. Vet. 

Sen. But there is another compliment of 
the countenance, which costs me more still : 

35. (S.) 

The necessity sometimes imposed on you of 
wringing your features into a smirk, in addressing 
a poltroon, who is a tiger at home, and a lamb 
abroad ;— or any other Miscreant out of a prison. 

36. (S.) 

Talking with a man of iron, who hears only 
himself; and who, after you have knocked all 
his arguments on the head, one after the other, 



1 " A fit of Laughter, mal-apropos, is one of the 
direst M Miseries of human life." 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFft, 147 

proceeds to haunt you with their ghosts ; so that, 
destroying the substance only brings upon you the 
additional trouble of laying the shadow. 

37- (T.) 
Sitting on with a sepulchral party after supper, 
two or three hours beyond the time at which you 
had ordered your carriage, but with which your 
drunken coachman is unable to come; so that you, 
at last, walk home five or six miles in the rain. 

38. (S.) 

In a large formal company, the necessity of com- 
municating something which you are extremely 
desirous of keeping secret from the rest of the party, 
to a person so very deat that nothing under a roar 
will find its way to him. — Or, the dead silence 
which sometimes takes place in company, while 
you are availing yourself of the general noise of 
voices, to enter upon confidential subjects with 
your next neighbour. 



Tes. I can beat both your instances : — 

39 (T.) 
Being compelled by a deaf person, in a large, 
and silent company, to repeat some very washy 






148 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

remark three or four times over, at the highest pitch 
of your voice. 

40. (S.) 

The sensation of disgust, accompanied by a pecu- 
liar giddy faintness, not to be described, and perhaps 
fully felt only by myself, which affects one at cer* 
tain speeches, certain manners, certain modes of 
pronunciation, and certain samples of folly, in cer- 
tain persons. 

41. (S.) 

Grating the sensibility, the prepossessions, the 
self-love, the vanity, &c. of the person to whom 
you are speaking, by some unguarded words, which, 
as soon as you have uttered them, you would die to 
eat ; — then, floundering and plunging, deeper, and 
deeper, in your wild and confused attempts to reco- 
ver yourself. 

42. (S.) 

Going from house to house, for the purpose of 
soliciting contributions for a case of distress ; and, 
with all your oratory, extorting nothing more sub- 
stantial than ho lf-muttered good wishes for the suc- 
cess of your charitable endeavours — though the 
gcod folks are " sorry they make a rule never to 
give to any whom they do not know," &c. 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 149 

43. (S.) 

After dinner — when the charming women with 
whom you were sitting have withdrawn, being left 
exposed to a long tete-a-tete with a Torpedo ; — a 
fellow who will neither pump nor flow. 

44. (S.) 

Being applied to, time after time, by certain easy 
folks with short memories, for the loan of small 
sums, for the avowed purpose of making purchases 
which you painfully refuse to yourself, out of eco- 
nomy ; or for the still more provoking purpose of 
making presents to their friends. 

45. (S.) 

After having said what you conceive to be a good 
thing, but which you fear that none of the com- 
pany heard, finding yourself reduced to the horrible 
alternative of losing the credit of your wit, or of 
repeating your bon-mot, with the risk of its having 
been before heard, and disapproved ; and, in (Ids 
case, with the certainty of being thought both a 
fool and a coxcomb. 

46. (S.) 

When in a nervous and irritable mood — sitting 
with one who has an unceasing trick of swinging 



15CT MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

himself in his chair like a pendulum — working his 
foot up and down like a life-grinder — beating with 
his nails or knuckles like a drummer, &c. &"c. — 
you being not sufficiently intimate with your tor- 
mentor to break in upon his occupations, 

47. (S.) 

After loudly boasting of your superior skill in 
stirring the fire, and being requested by the lady of 
the house to undertake it, — suddenly extinguishing 
every spark, in playing off what you had announced 
as a chef-d'oeuvre of the poker, 

48. (S.) 

Making your best bow for a supposed high com- 
pliment to yourself, which, however, you are pre- 
sently petrified by discovering was either not 
intended at all, or intended for another. 

49- (S.) 
Compelling yourself to take gulp after gulp of 
the ipecacuanha of flattery, (known to be purely 
self-interested,) out of regard to the feelings of some 
worthy friend or relation of the parasite, and whose 
presence restrains you from sp-tt-ng in his face. 

50. (S.) 

Being crowed over in an argument by one whom 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE, 151 

politeness prevents you from telling that you do not 
answer him, merely because, from the thickness of 
his utterance, as well as of his head, you do not 
know what he says, or means, • 

51. (S.) 

Being baited on all sides with intreaties to sing, 
when, either by nature or accident, you have no 
voice. 



Tes. To which pray add, 

52. (T.) 

Your feelings during, and immediately after, the 
performance of another, who eminently possesses 
every disqualification for a singer. 

53. (S.) 

After a long pause in conversation with a re- 
served person, to whom you are almost a stranger, 
re-addressing him at the same instant when he is 
re-addressing you : — a polite and dead stop on both 
sides: — then, after a reasonable time mutually 
given and taken for resuming the stifled speech, 
without effect — both chancing, at the same point of 
time, to venture again — and both as suddenly, 



152 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

again desisting : — till each is, at length, necessitated 
to take refuge in silent confusion. 

54. (T.) 

To be seized with morbid and irresistible sleepi- 
ness, while in conversation with persons who have 
every title to your respect or veneration, and before 
whom 

Nc " fas est obrepere somnum." Hor. 

55. (S.) 

Hearing bad grammar, bad emphasis, &c. from 
persons who ought to know much better — without 
the liberty of interfering. 



Tes. Yes, though you are longing to cry 

out 

u male nominatis 
" Parcite verbis/' Hor, 

56. (S.) 
The comfort of being kept half an hour without 
your hat in a drizzling rain, while attending a 
button-holder to your gate. 

57. (T.) 
On an afternoon-visit in the country — receiving 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 153 

a summons to attend a few Cats, (who think them- 
selves Kittens,) in their evening promenade ; while 
the enchanting girl who formed your sole attraction 
to the house, is confined at home by a slight indis- 
position, which would have only rendered her ad- 
ditionally interesting. 

5&, (S.) 

Being drawn into an inflammatory dispute, while 
labouring under a no less inflammatory sore throat. 

59- (S.) 
On going to "settle in a strange neighbourhood, 
far away from one in which you had a delightful 
society, performing Quarantine in your own house 
for six months at least, while the good people around 
you are debating, at a cautious distance, whether 
you may, yet, be safely approached, to be stared 
at upon trial. 



Tes. Yes— and even should that point be, 
at length, settled in your favour, you are 
still condemned to be fumigated a few weeks 
longer, while it is hotly disputed, which of the 
party shall be thrust foremost, (like a soldier 
on the forlorn hope,) upon the adventure. 



154 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

60. (S.) 

Drawing twelfth cake with a party who have to® 
little fancy even to attempt to support their cha- 
racters — or, if they do attempt it, to succeed ; but 
who bespeak these, and other Christmas frolics- 
just as they had bespoken the plumb-cake which 
attaches to them — merely as a formality of the 
season. 

61. (S.) 

Being destined to live much with Automata — 
people who regulate all their thoughts, words, and 
actions, by the stop-watch —whom no entreaties 
can melt into a consent to rise before, or. sit up 
after, a stated second — to bend to the most minute 
variation of the dinner-hour — to light a fire before 
old Michaelmas-day, or keep it in after Lady-ditto 
— to read, or hear read, more, or less, than a mea- 
sured number of pages at a sitting — to stay over the 
farce after a play, &c. &c. 



Testy. 
" Ilia manent immota lccis,neque abordine cedunt." 

Virg. T 

1 " Fix'd they remain, nor from their order part/' 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 155 

62. (S.) 

A long evening's tete-a-tete, in a close room, with 
a man who pretends that he cannot go to bed with- 
out choking you — L e. smoking his three or four 
pipes ; yet from whom you cannot escape, (though 
abhorring the smell of tobacco,) as you have busi- 
ness to transact with him which will not bear an 
hour's delay : — 

" Ilia autem, neque enim fuga jam super ulla 

pericli est, 
Faucibus ingentem fumum (mirabile dictu !) 
Evomit, involvitqne domum caligine cceca, 
Prospectum eripiens oculis, glomeratque sub antro 
Fumiferam noctem, commixtis igne tenebris." 1 



What, Sir — what, good Mr. Testy, is one to 
do with such a fellow ? 

Tes. What! — why go on to the end of the 



1 "But he — for now all hope of flight was gone — 

Forth vomits from his jaws (prodigious tale) 

Volumes of vapours, and clouds up the place 

In blindest gloom, expunging from the sight 

All prospect ; and, at bottom of the pit, 

Breathes night, in rolls of smoke— darkness with fire.' 



15(5 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

passage, and you will see;- — do with him ?— 
why do exactly as you will there find Her- 
cules did with his smoking companion, to be 
sure : — 

" Non tulit Alcides animis, seque ipse per ignem 
Prascipito jecit saltu, qua plurimus undam 
Fumus agit, nebulaque ingens specus sestuat atra ; 
Hie, Cacum, in tenebris incendia vana vomentem, 
Corripit, in nodum complexus, et angit inhaerens 
Elisos oculos, et siccura sanguine guttur." Virg. 1 

That's what you are to do with him; and so, 
if you will lend me your pencil, I will write 
it down for you, since you seem to have for- 
gotten it, to be ready against your next visit 
to the rascal. 

Sen. Your remedy, though confessedly ef- 
fectual, requires some consideration before I 



1 " Alcides brook'd no more ; but all at once, 
In headlong fury flings him through the flames, 
There where the mist its waves pours thickest forth, 
And the vast dungeon with black clouds boils round. 
There, Cacus, 'mid th' obscure disgorging vain 
Those monstrous flames, he seizes — girding him 
Within his wreathed arms, and with fast hug 
Strains out his eyes, and drains his throat of gore." 



miseries of social life. 157 

determine to apply it: — in the mean time, I 
proceed : — 

63. (S.) 

At a dinner-table — being placed at the bottom, 
while all the choicest and liveliest people are 
thrown to the top — you longing to be among them, 
and to join their flights of fancy, instead of grinding 
along, with your neighbours at the drowsy end of 
the table, in their broad-wheeled waggons, on the 
mile-stone road of matter-of-fact. 



Tes. Not to be endured — any more than 
another situation not very unlike it — what 
say you ? 

64. (S.) 

Falling among a junto of Lawyers, or Physicians, 
or Merchants, or Naval Captains, &c. — (all except 
yourself, of one profession) — who instantly and 
hotly begin to discuss the driest and most technical 
points relating to their causes, cases, speculations, 
battles, &c. (as the case may be) without granting 
you one merciful pause of hostilities during the 
whole evening : rascals ! — but the lawyers are the 
worst, when they set about it, because they have 
the freest use of their tongues : I have more than 



15S MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

once, fallen into their clutches ; and, as often, mut- 
tered between my teeth, — 

_ « these are Counsellors, 

That feelingly persuade me what I am !" 

and that is, the most miserable dog alive, till I can 
get out of their company. 



Sen. There are worse evils of this kind yet 
in store: — what purgatory can compare with 
that of 

65. (T.) 

Dining, and passing the whole evening, with a 
party of fox-hunters, after they have had what 
they call " glorious sport ;" and, while you exe- 
crate the very name of a hound, being gorged with 
the crambe recocta of one fox-chase after another, 
till, like Miss Larolks, you u wish the country 
was under ground." 

66. (S.) 

At an important crisis of public affairs—- after 
waiting in an agony for a newspaper, seeing it 
snatched up at its entrance by an addled fellow, 
who reads like a snail, and, if he gives any of it 
aloud, picks out the wrong article first, and bungles 
and garbles all the rest. 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 159 

67. (S.) 

Escorting two or three coaches full of country- 
cousins, on their first importation into London from 
the Terra Incognita of England, to the Lions, the 
Wax-work, the Monument, &c. &c. 

68. (S.) 

Hearing your favourite poem, play, &c. mam- 
mocked by the mouth of a forward Puppy, who, on 
a proposal that it should be read aloud by one of 
the company, briskly seizes upon the office, — an 
excellent reader being present, whose modesty 
withheld him from offering his services. 

69. (S.) 

While you are attentively listening to the infor- 
mation or opinions of a well stored man, being per- 
petually u pestered by a popinjay" at your elbow, 
who claws you away from your nourishment, and 
forces you to swallow his froth. 

70. (S.) 

At the tea or card-table — the intervals between 
the cups, or deals, eagerly filled by the remarks. 
upon character which drop from the " skinny lips" 
of certain waning Vestals ; who, moreover, manage 
their inuendos so adroitly, that you are obliged to 



160 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

let them pass unstigmatized, (though your fairest 
and dearest female friends are among their victims,) 
for fear of sanctioning the malignity, by seeming to 
understand it. 

71. (S.) 

Falling in with a fellow who thinks he can enter- 
tain you by reciting in detail the dishes, courses, 
and cookery, of his favourite dinners for the last 
month — besides rehearsals of meals in prospect, as 
far as he is yet studied in the bills of fare; — in 
short, who requires you to hear him conjugate the 
verb to dine, in the first person singular, through all 
its moods and tenses. 

72. (S.) 

The sort of anxiety about all your motions, and 
purposes, which is shewn by certain persons, with 
whose insinuated interrogatories you have to fence 
for a whole evening; together. 



Tes. Fence !— what, when you have not 
a cudgel, I suppose; that's my weapon upon 
such occasions. 

73. (S.) 
Receiving the condolences of one, whose manner 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. ]6l 

and countenance confess, against his orders, that 
his heart is in a broad grin. 

74. (S.) 

Just as you have comfortably seated yourself 
with a party who have met by long appointment, 
and who are all the favourites of each other — ■ 
hearing the servant announce a person who is the 
favourite abomination of the whole set, yet who 
evidently shews, at his entrance, that he has been 
plotting an agreeable surprise for you. 

75. (S.) 

-At breakfast — hearing a good old lady detail, 
at full length, her last night's long dull dream, af- 
fording nothing more remarkable than the usual 
chaos of conclusions without premises, and that 
( sort of topsy-turvy, tangled account of the flattest 
incidents of common life which we could ail give 
every morning, if we did not make all possible 
haste to forget the nonsense, as soon as we have 
recovered our senses : — but this is not all ; for as 
soon as she has, at length, brought her idiotic nar- 
rative to an end, and you begin to breathe again, 
your attention is once more laid in irons, whilst she 
buckles to the interpretation of it, in all its parts ! 



M 



162 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

76. (S.) 

A fellow who treats you in all respects {the fee 
excepted) like his physician; — unreservedly laying 
before you, while he is helping you at dinner, all 
the minutest particulars of his most revolting ail- 
ments, from the first attack down to the present 
moment ; 

" Morborum quoque te causas, et signa docebo." 1 

Virg. 



Tes. What, Sensitive ; — and do you sit 
quietly under this? and at table, too? — For 
my own part, I can't say I'm altogether so 
conformable; — no — as soon as ever I find 
these open-hearted Lazars beginning to enter 
into the marrow of their interesting confes* 
sions, I let them know my mind in a manner 
that pretty effectually secures me from this 
u misery" for the rest of that sitting : — 

" Sunt verba, et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolorem 
Possis, et magnam morbi deponere partem/' Hot\ 



-now will I rehearse 



The birth, and symptoms of each sore disease* 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. ]63 

Sen. Why, what can you say to them, I 
beseech you ? 

Tes. Say to them ? — simply pretend to be a 
still more miserable object than themselves ; 
and so, in my turn, I treat 'em with such 
a display of my local maladies, and then 
work up for 'em such lively and picturesque 
descriptions of the wonderful powers of my 
medicines, seasoned with such dainty illustra- 
tions of the smack they leave upon the palate 
in going down, that I make 'em lay down 
their knives and forks in a greater hurry than 
they took them up. 

Sen. Why I must confess that, whatever 
other objections may he against your mode 
of revenge, it has both safety and justice on 
its side : — But I have other w r oes to tell : 

77* (S) 
Walking in a wind that cuts to the bone, with a 
narrative companion, whose mind and body cannot 
move a.t the. same time ; or, in other words, who, as 
he gets on with his stories, thinks it necessary, at 
every other sentence, to stand stock still, face about, 
and make you do the same ; then, totally regard- 
less of your shivering impatience to push on, refuses 






164 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

to stir an inch, till the whole of his endless thread 
is fairly wound out : — 

" Dixit, et adversi contra stetit ora" — 



Tes. " Juvenci;" — pray dont leave out 
that word ; for what a calf must you be to 
stand still for him ! if you'd move on, depend 
on't he'd follow :— such a fellow, with all his 
love of a dead halt, would rather tell his 
stories at full speed, than let you escape them, 
take my word for it. 

78. (S.) 
After a long and animated debate with a friend, 
in the dark, and just as you have drawn forth all 
your strongest arguments, and are beginning exult- 
ingly to infer from his long silence, that you have 
completely worsted him, and that he has not 
another word to say — receiving his answer in a 
strong, steady snore, which shews him to have been 
in a sweet sleep for the last quarter of an hour. 

rs. (s.) 

In a ball-room — after long sitting, in profound 
meditation, on the extreme edge of a form, with 
only one other person at the farther end, being 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 165 

suddenly recalled from your absence by rinding that 
you are amusing the company with an involuntary 
somerset, brought on by the abrupt departure of 
your Counterpoise ; — the bench (which had re- 
mained perfectly gentle, as long as it carried double) 
seizing that opportunity of throwing its astonished 
rider, without further ceremony, by furiously rear- 
ing at one end, and -plunging at the other. 

80. (S.) 

Being called in as an umpire in a matrimonial 
quarrel 

Tes, Hey-day ! — , 

-" quae mens tain dira, miserrime conjiix, 



Impulit his cingi telis ? aut quo ruis ¥' inquam : 
" Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis 
Tempus eget !" Virg. 

Sen. Mr. Testy, I agree with you in your 
dislike of being interrupted :— I must begin 
again— 

(S.) 

Being called in as an umpire in a matrimonial 
quarrel — which leaves you the choice of splitting 
on one of the six following rocks ; — viz. 



1(56 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE* 

1. That of remaining silent — (for which both parlies 

hate you ; each supposing that you secretly 
favour the other.) 

2. That of pronouncing that both are in the wrong — 

(for which you are, obviously, hated by both.) 

3. That of insinuating that both may be in the 

right — (hated, again, on both sides ; each being 
more enraged at your conl-re, than grateful for 
your pour.) 
4u That of defending the lady at the expense of the 
gentleman — (still hated by both ;t— by her, for 
attacking her caro sposo, whom she will suffer 
no one to despise but herself; — by him, for 
siding with the enemy.) 

5. That of dtf aiding the gentleman at the expense 

of the lady — (this case is, inversely, the same 
with the last.) 

6. That of endeavouring to make peace, by treating 

the matter " en badinage" — (for which both 
are far too much in earnest, as well as far too 
eager for victory, not to hate you most of all.) 
—The best course, perhaps, if you cannot 
steal away, is to be taken with a sudden and 
violent fit of the tooth-ache, which may last 
ad libitum. 



Tes. Your concluding Misery takes in two 



MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. 167 

parlies, and should be divided between us ; one 
moiety for you as a Bachelor, and the other 
for me as a Benedict. — Well, but what subject 
comes next? for I must hurry into the library, 
to meet a confounded fellow, who 

Sen. Thank you for the hint, Sir ; the Li- 
brary itself shall find us a subject: let us try 
whether literary enjoyments ought to rank at 
all higher than any of the preceding. 1 must 
inform you that, during the intervals between 
my late delightful visits, I have generally fled 
for refuge to the book, or the pen ; and if 
you have been at all in the practice of de- 
pending upon the same supports, a*nd found 
them as miserably fallacious as I have, we 
shall have no difficulty in lengthening the list 
of our Groans, from this source. 

Tes. None : — I never, yet, took up a book 
that I did not, in five minutes afterwards, 
fling to the other end of the room ; nor a pen 
that I did not split up to the feather against 
the table, before I had written two lines with 
it. — Books, and Pens, then, by all means, for 
our next theme ; I defy the good old dame 
who vented her spite against reading and 
writing, for having brought her son to the 



168 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

gallows, to bear them more ill will than I do. 
— Tomorrow morning, then, I beg we may 
talk over our studies, together, in my library 
aforesaid. 
Sen. Well proposed :— you may expect me. 






MISERIES OF READING AND WRITING. l6g 



DIALOGUE THE EIGHTH. 



MISERIES OF READING AND WRITING. 



Testy, Senior and Junior. — Sensitive. (Testes 
house at Highgate.) 

Testy. [Throwing the book which he had been 
reading into the Jire, as he sees Sensitive 
enter. ] 

vxet you gone, and be burnt, for your pains! 
— Here, Sensitive, take a misery warm from 
the heart, while I am still suffering under it; 
— I will follow it with a cluster of others. 

Groan 1. (T.) 

Reading over a passage in an author, for the 
hundredth time, without coming an inch nearer 
to the meaning of it at th? last reading, than at the 
first ; — then passing over it in despair, but without 



170 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

being able to enjoy the rest of the book, from the 
painful consciousness of your own real or supposed 
stupidity. 

2. (T.) 

As you are reading drowsily by the fire, letting 
your book fall into the ashes, so as to lose your 
place, rumple and grime the leaves, and throw out 
your papers of reference ; then, on rousing and re- 
collecting yourself, finding that you do not know a 
syllable of what you have been winking and blinking 
over for the last hour. 

3. (TO 

In reading a new and interesting book, being 
reduced to make a paper-knife of your finger. 

4. (T.) 

Unfolding a very complicated map in a borrowed 
book of value, and, notwithstanding all your care, 
enlarging the small rent you originally made in it^ 
every time you open it. 



Sen. Apropos of maps: — 

5. (S.) 
Hunting on a cold scent, in a map for a place — 
in a book for a passage— in a variety of Dictionaries 
foj a word :— clean thrown out at last. 



MISERIES OF READING AND WRITING. 171 

6. (S.) 

Reading a comedy aloud, " by particular desire/' 
when you are half asleep, and quite stupid. 

7 (T) 
In attempting, at a strange house, to take down 
a large book from a high, crowded shelf, bringing 
half the library upon your nose. 

8. (S.) 
Mining through a subject, or science, u invita 
(-or rather exosd) Mi uerva," — purely from the shame 
of ignorance. 

9- (S.) 
Receiving, " from the author," a book equally 
heavy in the literal, and the figurative sense ; ac- 
companied with intreaties that } 7 ou would candidly 
set down in writing your detailed opinions of it in 
all its parts. 

10. (S.) 

Reading a borrowed book so terribly well-bound, 
that you aie obliged to peep your way through it, 
for fear of bieaking the stitches, or the leather, if 
you fairly open it ; and which, consequently, shuts 
with a spring, it left a moment to itself. 



172 



MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 



11. (T.) 

Yes : — or, after you have long been reading the 
said book close by the fire, (which is not quite so 
ceremonious as you are about opening it,) attempt- 
ing in vain to shut it, the covers violently flapping 
back in a warped curve — in counteracting which, 
you crack the leather irreparably, in a dozen places. 

12. (S.) 

On taking a general survey of your disordered 
library for the purpose of re-arranging it, — find- 
ing a variety of broken sets, and odd volumes, of 
valuable works, which you had supposed to be 
complete ; — and then, after screwing up your brows 
upon it for an hour, finding yourself wholly unable 
to recollect to whom any one of the missing books 
has been lent, or even to guess what has become of 
them ; and, at the same time, without having the 
smallest hope of ever being able to replace them. — 
Likewise, 

13. (S.) 

Your pamphlets, and loose printed sheets daily 
getting a-head, and running mountain-high upon 
your shelves, before you have summoned courage 
to tame them, by sorting and sending them to the 
binder. 



MISERIES OF READING AND WRITING. 173 

14. (S.) 

As an author — those moments during which you 
are relieved from the fatigues of composition by 
fiuding that your memory, your intellects, your 
imagination, your spirits, and even the love of your 
subject, have all, as if with one consent, left you in 
the lurch. 

15. (T.) 

In coming to that paragraph of a news-paper, for 
the sake of which you have bought it, finding, in 
that only spot, the paper blurred, or left white, by 
the press ; or slapped over with the sprawling red 
stamp. 

16\ (S.) 

Reading news-paper poetry; — which, by a sort 
of fatality which you can neither*explain nor resist, 
you occasionally slave through, in the midst of the 
utmost repugnance and disgust. 

17. (S.) 
As you are eagerly taking up a newspaper, being 
yawningly told by one who has just laid it down, 
that u there is nothing in it. "-—Or, the said Paper 
gent for by the lender, at the moment when you are 
beginning to read it. 



174 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

IS. (S.) 

Having your cars invaded all the morning long, 
close at your study window, by the quack of ducks, 
and the cackle of hens, with an occasional bass- 
accompaniment by an ass. 



Tes. So much for the joys of Reading : — now 
for those of Writing ; most of which, by the 
bye, I experienced in minuting down the very 
items I am going to read to you : — 

19. (T.) 
Writing a long letter, with a very hard pen, on 
very thin, and very greasy paper, with very pale ink, 
to one whom you wish — I need'nt say where. 



Sen. Stay; I- have another reading distress, 
of which I am reminded by seeing Mrs. Testy 
at her novel : — when I have finished it, I will 
give up the writing miseries to you ; for you 
seem to have prepared yourself under that 
article, and I have not. 

20. (S.) 
On arriving at that part of the last volume of an 



MISERIES OF READING AND WRITING. 175 

enchanting novel, in which the interest is wrought 
up to the highest pitch, — suddenly finding the re- 
maining leaves, catastrophe and all, torn out. 



Tes. So much the better — novels, indeed! 
— besides, as the leaves of a novel are good 
for nothing that I can see but to set the reader 
a whimpering, why, the loss of them would 
answer the end just as well: for there you 
have a € * hiatus valde deflendus" — And so 
now, with your leave, I will go back to my 

Writing. 

21. (T.) 

Burning your fingers with an inch of sealing wax; 
and then dropping awry the guinea to which you 
are reduced by the want of a seal. 

22. (T.) 

In writing : — neither sand, blotting paper, nor a 
fire, to dry your paper ; so that, though in violent 
haste, you sit with your hands before you, at the 
end of every other page, till the ink thinks proper to 
dry of itself : — or toiling your wrist, for ten minutes 
together, with a sand-glass that throws out two or 
three damp grains at a time ; and, in consequence 
of such delay, — (but this calamity deserves a sepa- 
rate commemoration)— 



176 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

23. (T.) 

Losing the post ; — and this, when you would as 
willingly lose your life. 

24. (T.) 

Emptying the ink-glass, (by mistake for the sand- 
glass,) on a paper which you have just written out 
fairly — and then widening the mischief, by applying 
rest it e blotting paper. 

25. (T.) 

Putting a wafer, of the size of a half-crown piece, 
into a letter with so narrow a fold, that one half 
of the circle stands out in sight, and is presently 
smeared over the paper by your fingers, in stamp- 
ing the concealed half. 

26. (T.) 

Writing on the creases of paper that has been 
sharply folded. 



Mrs. Tes. Nay, Mr. Testy, with such an 
up-and-down hand as yours is, you ought, 
I think, to be glad of an opportunity of writ- 
ing, here and there, one straight line. 



MISERIES OF READING AND WRITING. 177 

V. (T.) 
In sealing a letter — the wax in so very melting a 
mood, as frequently to leave a burning kiss on your 
own hand, instead of the paper : — next, when you 
have applied the seal, and all, at last, seems well 
over, — said wax voluntarily " rendering up its 
trust," the moment after it has undertaken it. 
— So much for a Fyn sigcllak ; well brand, en vast 

houd r 

28. (T.) 

Writing at the top of a very long sheet of paper ; 
so that you either rumple and crease the lower end 
of it with your arm against the table, in bringing it 
lower down, or bruise your chest, and drive out all 
your breath, in stretching forward to the upper 
end. 



It gets so dark that I can hardly puzzle out 
my memorandums: — O! that reminds me, 
by the way, of another morsel of reading 
misery which came upon me yesterday even- 
ing, viz. 

29. (T.) 

Straining your eyes over a book in the twilight, 
at the rate of about five minutes per line, before it 
H 



178 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

occurs to you to order candles ; and when they 
arrive, finding that you have totally lost the sense 
of what you have been reading, by the tardy ope- 
ration of getting at it piece-meal. 

30. (T.) 

Attempting to erase writing — but, in fact, only 
scratching holes in the paper. 

3L (T.) 

Snatching up an inkstand (overweighted on one 
side) by its handle, which you suppose to be fixed, 
but which proves— to swing ! 

32. (T.) 

Writing at the same ricketty table with another, 
who employs his shoulder, elbow, and body, still 
more actively than his fingers. 

33. (T.) 

Writing, on the coldest day in the year, in the 
coldest room jn the house, by a fire which has 
sworn not to burn ; and so, perpetually dropping 
your full pen upon your paper, out of the five 
icicles with which you vainly endeavour to hold it. 



MISERIES OF BEADING AND WRITING. I?9 

3*. (T.) 

Looking for a good pen, (which it is your per- 
verse destiny never to find, except when you are 
indifferent about it,) and having a free choice among 
the following varieties. [N. B. No penknife.] 




35. (T.) 

Writing with ink of about the consistency of 
pitch, which leaves alternately a blot and a blank. 

36. (T.) 

Writing a long letter with one or more of the cut 
fingers of your right hand bundled up— or else (for 
more comfort) with your left hand ! 



180 'mISE'RIE^ OF HUMAN LIFE. " 

See ! {shewing his fingers wrapped up) you 
aright as well stick a pen in a bear's paw, and 
bid him write: — I have had three letters this 
morning. returned as illegible ; and if you will 
look at what I have just stumped out upon 
that paper, you'll find they have not com- 
plained without reason. 

Sen. I have seen finer writing, undoubt- 
edly;- — but what do you expect?— it is our 
fate: — other men never meet with these 
things, while we meet with nothing else.— 
So, too, in reading, as we have just seen ; our 
volumes will neither shut when they are open, 
nor open when they are shut— and, to come 
back to your present accident, our pens are 
never fit to be used, except when our fingers 
are not fit to use them ; — so it is ! 

Tes. Yes, yes — it is the way of things — so 
things go — Things ;— it has come to be a bye- 
word with me, to express, by a sort of short- 
hand language, the cross-grained twist which 
takes every plan and action of my life: — 
" Aye, that's so like things" I cry. — But I 
must leave you in a hurry: — can .you dine 
with me to-day ? — or rather, can you take 
your chance whether there is any thing fit to 
be touched i 



MISERIES OF READING AND WRITING. lSl 

Sen. No; — but I will do what you have 
unconsciously suggested, by your last words; 
I will meet you on your earliest leisure day, 
for the purpose of enlarging upon your idea 
of a had dinner ; when, I doubt not, we shall 
be able to prove, to each other's satisfaction, 
that those are happiest who have no appetites, 
and consequently eat least. Who it is that 
" sends cooks," the proverb has long saved us 
the trouble of guessing ; — and to give them 
their " due" as well as their Sender, most 
faithful missionaries they are ! 

Tes. Cooks ! — don't name them, Sensitive ! 
— for my part, I live now chiefly upon mi/k, 
which I am not over fond of, merely that I 
may have my mess dressed by the pure hand 
of Nature — for as to Milton's " neat handed 
Phyllis," she has never yet happened to offer 
herself to my service. — Yes, I'll talk over the 
kitchen with you, as soon as you please, and 
very eloquent I can be upon it, believe me. 
I only hope none of the tribe may come 
athwart me while 1 am warm with my subject; 
for it would not have a pretty look to be hanged 
for strangling a scullion, you know ! 

Sen. You would escape, Sir; — no Judge or 



182 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Jury but would recommend you to mercy 5 
and no king but would extend it: — Yet, on 
second thoughts, with your leave, we will not 
defile our tongues with descriptions of foul 
cookery — an evil so universally felt and un- 
derstood, that even the adversaries, in our 
great Cause, will uot require us to produce the 
proofs; — let us rather confine ourselves to 
certain other distresses of the table, which, 
if less nauseating, are, yet, infinitely more 
acute, as well as more appropriate to polite 
sufferers. 

Tes. What, are you laying your trains for 
monopolizing the subject, I perceive; — but 
you will find that in no part of the chapter 
of Table-torments shall I be out of my depths 
I'll meet you, then, on your own terms; only 
let me know when, in proper time. 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C. 183 



DIALOGUE THE NINTH. 

MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C. 






Testy } Senior and Junior.— Sensitive. (Testg's 
House*) 

Testy. 

Jl1 e y-day! frierfd Sensitive — what, in the 
name of nastiness, has now come 

u Between the wind and your nobility ?" 

why, you have not a feature in its proper 
place ? — have you just been passing by a pig* 
stye ? — or what has come across you ? 

Sen. A pig-stye! — O, would that were 
all! — No! I have just — not passed by, but 
actually entered into, and at length, thank 



184 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

my stars/ escaped alive out of, — a man-stye 
— a chop-house, Mr. Testy, a chop-house! — ■ 
Every poor gentleman, I believe, has done 
the same, once in his life, out of economy; 
and so, made himself sick for the rest of his 
clays: — O the " beggarly unwholesome 
knaves!" — and, if possible, still more un- 
wholesome provender; — take the description, 
reeking from the reality, while I am able to 
attempt it :— first, though, give me, for pity, 
a glass of cherry-brandy, to settle my imagina- 
tion, as well as my stomach. (Testy rings the 
bell violently, and, at the next instant, begins 
swearing at the delay of the servant. — Sensitive, 
after swallowing the cordial, delivers) 

Groan 1. (S.) 
On my entrance, Sir, I beheld three or four silent, 
wan, scattered wretches, who, from their several 
corners, were whispering their mean orders, or set- 
tling their shabby accounts, with the waiter ;— as, 
t c bring me half a gill of wine" — " another quarter 
of a pint of your table-beer," &c. &c. Then, for my 
accommodations — coarse, grimed, slopped, scanty 
able cloth, from which the last man's draff and cf- 
al was briskly, but not effectually, whisked away, to 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C. 185 

make me comfortable ! — knife and fork slubbered 
through the general knife-cloth, leaving the split 
handles gritty and greasy; and, on the knife, the 
maker's name, and the joining (or rather ^-joining) 
part clogged up with brick dust. I next had to beguile 
my waiting-time of three quarters of an hour, with 
the well-buttered, beered, and thumbed weekly (if 
not monthly) Chronicle, which I found sprawling 
over the bottomless cruets, dry mustard-pot, party- 
coloured salt, smeared spoons, &c. — At last, up 
came my black, raw, tough, chop, (as I had no 
fancy for a 19th slice, hacked from the once-hot 
joint,) and one or two watery, broken potatoes, 
with the skins on, or rather failing off, together with 
the oily water prepared for them in a cracked but- 
ter-boat. — (All this time, observe, my motions were 
gloomily surveyed by one or two Abjects, (seated 
in the same box with me) who had been already fed 
and drenched, but who, for no reason, sat still a 
long time, muzzing, and leaning on their folding 
arms, till, at length, they sneaked out.) — Then 
came the dry rank remains of some non-descript 
cheese ; and at last, — as I could not swallow new 
sloe-water, because they called it port, — my pint 
of stale, frothless porter, in a yellow, scorched mug, 
without a handle — all concluded by the grim waiter, 
with his verbal bill, thus audibly delivered, in a tone 



186 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

of glib slang, for the edification of the rest of the 
kennel— " Dinner* Sd. — penny bread, uerniy'taters, 
live fard'ns beer, fard'n cheese — in all ll£d." — the 
mechanical memory of each man's account being 
evidently the only faculty resident in his black, 
bull's head. — To consummate my sorrows, — just as 
I was going out of the house, after my poison, to 
drown myself, my eye was caught by some of the 
most elegant women of my acquaintance, smiling 
by in a barouche ! — My last-mentioned purpose I 
resolved to defer, till I bad imparted to you the cir- 
cumstances that inspired it. 



Tes. Come, come, defer it a little longer 
still — at least till you have taken another glass 
of the cordial. I am nearly as far gone my- 
self, at the bare description, and so I shall beg 
leave to pledge you.— Come, cheer up !— and 
force yourself to forget it, by searching your 
common-place book for some calamity a little 
less loathsome. — Here — read me No. 1, which 
your late adventure, you know, has turned 
into No. % by unexpectedly taking the lead. 

Sen {looking at his paper) Ah ! — if torture 
can overcome qualmishness, this may well 
succeed, truly ! — 1 will leave you to judge. 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C. 187 

2. (S.) 

A dinner of roast-meat indefatigably prophesied 
in your ear the whole morning long, by the piteous 
moans of a jack ; at the same time that the fluc- 
tuations of a stormy day are no less faithfully re- 
ported to you by a neighbouring Sign, swinging and 
squeaking by fits, in the wind— illness closely con- 
fining you to the house, and thereby securing your 
attention, during the whole performance of this 
diabolical duetto. 



Tes. As to the u swinging sign," Virgil 
seems to have drawn the same use from it 
that you have : 

H ventos 



ut certis possimus discere signis" 



3. (T.) 

After having been very hungry all the morning, 
finding, as you sit down to an excellent dinner, that 
your appetite has secretly decamped.— »Or r 

4. (T.) 

On entering the dining-room, half-famished, with 
the fullest expectations of seeing the dinner on the 
table — not even the cloth laid. 



188 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

5; (S.) 

Sitting down, with a keen appetite, to a bef- 
steak, (and nothing else,) which proves to be com- 
pletely charked by over-dressing. 



Tes. Confound 'em ! — none of them ever 
attend to Macbeth's receipt for dressing a 
beef-steak, though by much the best that ever 
was given. 

Sen. How ! 

Tes. Why, 

- — | : ■ a when 'tis done, 'twere well 

If 'twere done quickly." 

6. (T.) 

In a college-hall — sitting at dinner on a bench 
nailed to the floor, and this at such a distance from 
the table, (nailed down also,) that you feed in the 
.position of a Rower, just beginning his stroke. 

7- (S.) 

Slicing at a large round of beef, (near which your 

Evil Genius has seated you) with a very short- 

bladed knife, so as inevitably to grease its handle, 

your fingers, and the cuff of your coat ;-r the 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C. 189 

company, as if in a plot to drive you out of your 
senses, scarcely tasting of any thing else. 



Ned Tes. O, a long knife for a large joint, 
by all means; both for nicety's sake, and 
because 

11 Foititer et melius magnas plerumque secat res." 

8. (S.) 

After forwardly offering your services in cutting 
up a goose, or a hare — being obliged to make a 
practical confession, before twenty watchful wit- 
nesses j that you have no genius for carving. 

9. (T.) 

Diving, at a bone with a marrow-spoon so large 
that it sticks at the middle of the bowl ; — then, on 
trying, in despair, with & fork, bringing up two or 
three globules of yellow fat. — 



This constantly happens to us, Mrs. Testy, as 
you very well know — however you manage it. 

Ned Tes. (with a start) 
A vaunt! — " thy bones are marrowless !" Macb. 



190 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

10. (S.) 

Attempting to cut and help out cauliflower, or 
asparagus, with a spoon : — the fate of the cargo, 
(which you had neglected to insure,) is well 
known ;— ditto as to jelly \ which instantly bids 
adieu to the spoon, and quivers like quicksilver 
about the cloth. 

11. (S.) 

The spinning plate : — there is but one, and you 
always have it. 

12. (T.) 

Missing the way to your mouth, and drowning 
your breast in a bath of beer. 

13. (T.) 

The moment in which you discover that you 
have taken in a mouthful of fat, by mistake for 
turnip. 

14, (S.) 

Finding an human hair in your mouth, which, 
as you slowly draw it forth, seems to lengthen ad 
infinitum. 

15. (S.) 

A strong tang of tallow, or onion, in your bread 



MISERIES Of THE TABLE, &C, IQ1 

and butter, at a house where decorum forbids you 
either to splutter or sputter. 



Tes. Nay, nay — if a man may'nt €i quarrel 
with his bread and butter* in this case, I don't 
know when he may! — For my own part, 
whenever mine is flavoured in this way, I 
don't stop to think what house Fm in, I can 
tell you. 

16. (S.) 

Long after you have finished your own temperate 
meal, seeing the sixth or eighth plate of turtle, veni- 
son, &e. conveyed into a living Larder immedi- 
ately opposite to you. 

17. (S.) 

Grinding on upon tough sinewy meat with suppo- 
sititious teeth, 

18. (T.) 

A stone lurking in your crust, which you crush 
with such violence as to drive out a tooth and an 
oath at the same time. 

19- (T.) 

Labouring at a piece of meat (brawn in parti- 
cular) with a carving-knife so blunt, that it does 



192 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

not penetrate above a hair's breadth in a dozen see- 
saws, and keeps slipping from its hold, leaving you 
no chance of getting a slice less than an inch thick 
— and this is presently returned for a thinner one, 
which, if you are able to cut at all, you cut only 
by dividends. 

20. (S.) 

Inviting a friend, (whom you know to be parti- 
cularly fond of the dish,) to partake of a fine hare, 
haunch, &c. which you have endeavoured to keep 
exactly to the critical moment, but which is no 
sooner brought in, than the whole party, with one 
7iosc, order it to be taken out. 

21. (S.) 
Biting a piece of your cheek almost out, and theii 
perpetually catching it between your teeth, during 
the remainder of your meal, and for a fortnight 
afterwards. 

22. (S.) 

. At dinner, in the dog-days — seeing several copies 
of the grain of the footman's thumb printed off in a 
hot mist upon the rim of your plate. 

23. (T.) 

After having completely dined upon one or two 
things which you are not at all fond of, — seeing 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE. 193 

your favourite dish, which had not been announced, 
brought in excellently dressed. 

24. (S.) 
Slipping your knife suddenly and violently from 
off a bone — its edge first shrieking across the plate, 
(so as to make )ou hated by yourself, and the 
whole company) and then driving the plate before 
it, and lodging all its contents — meat, gravy, melted 
butter, vegetables, &c. &c. — partly on your own 
breeches, partly on the cloth, partly on the floor, 
but principally on the lap of a charming girl who 
sits by you, and to whom you have been diligently 
endeavouring to recommend yourself. 

25. (S.) 
At a formal dinner — the awful res ting- time which 
occasionally intervenes between the courses : 



Ned Tes. 

u Inde alios ineunt cursus^ aliosque re-cursus, — » 
Adversis spatiis f" Virg. 

26. (S.) 
After you have long been fingering and peeling 
fresh walnuts, looking about in vain for some of the 
skins, (all swept away) for the purpose of rubbing 
off the stains ;— nails unusually long. 
o 



J94 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE*. 

27. .(SO 

Dropping in upon a friend at the dinner hour, 
Upon the strength of his general invitation,— and at 
once discovering, from the countenance and manner 
of his Lady, that you'd better have waited for a 
particular one. 

28. (T.) 

A fish-bone, or other substance, stuck between 
your two hindmost teeth; then, in your endeavours 
to remove it with a tooth-pick, only wedging it 
tighter than ever. 

29. (T.) 

In decanting wine — receiving a hint that it is 
time to stop, from the liquor, as it suddenly gurgles 
down the sides of the full decanter over your hands, 
and the floor.— N* B. The like effects of the like 
want of caution in the still more terrible instance 
of filling an ink -glass. 

30. (S.) 

Triumphantly producing from your cellar the 
last remaining bottle of some choice old wine, pre- 
viously announced to your friends as the boast of 
the binn — but which, when decanted j shews an 
aspect so desperately cloudy, that no exposure to 
the fire can prevail upon it to brighten up. 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C. 195 

31. (T.) 

On receiving and opening several hampers of 
precious wine, just arrived from a great distance, 
—finding that the bottles have almost all bled to 
death, in consequence of quarrelling and fighting 
by the way. 

32. (S.) 
The yerk, or throe, in the throat, that follows 
3'oui last bumper of port, when you have already 
exceeded your quantum. 



Tes. So much for the comfort of sitting 
down to dinner ! — But there are other meals, 
you know : — so now, 

11 To breakfast, with what appetite, we may." 

The less the better, indeed, on the following 
occasion, — with which 1 will begin : — 

33. (T.) 

On coming down late to a hasty breakfast, — 
finding the last drop of water in your kettle boiling 
away, the toast in the ashesyand the cat just finish- 
ing your cream. 



196 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE* 

34. (S.) 

Making the hopeless circuit of the English Teas P 
' — sage, balm, rosemary, &c. &c— when the Doctor 
has laid his paw upon your tea-chest ; till you are 
at last left completely bankrupt in breakfast.— 



As for myself, between the mischief to my 
nerves, if I do drink tea, and to my comfort if 
I do not 

Ned Tes. You may cry with Martial, 

" Nee TEA-cum possum vivere, nee sine tea." 

35. (S.) 

After having dealt carelessly with honey at break- 
fast, to be hurried away, without a moment allowed 
for washing your hands ; or,— (since that cannot 
possibly be granted you,)— for chopping them off. 



Ned Tes. 

" Plus aloes quam mellis habet.^ Juv* 

35. (T.) 
In the depth of winter— trying in vain to effect 
an union between unsoftened butter, and the crum 
of a very stale loaf, or a quite new one. 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C. 197 

Sen. Yes — I have often wondered that 
neither the Inquisitors, nor the American Sa- 
vages, when they have been out of tortures, 
have yet hit upon either of these, 

37. (T.) 
Letting fall (of course on the buttered side,) the 
piece of roll, or muffin, on which you had set your 
heart. 



NedTes. Cruel dirt!— 
" hceret lateri — lethalis ! Virg, 

38. (S.) 

As you sit at break fast— suddenly breaking down 
the back of your chair, and, in & failing attempt to 
save yourself in your fall, kicking up the table — ■ 
with the comfort, however, of preserving the tea- 
urn, cups, plates, &c. &c. all of which you deliver 
safe into the lap of the lady of the house, who 
sits opposite ! 

39. (S.) * 

Being roused from a reverie at breakfast, by 
hastily swallowing a dose of very strong tea, in 
which both the cream and the sugar have been, 
orgotten. 



1Q$ MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

40. (T.) 

Trying often to harpoon a floating pat of butter, 
which, as often, slips aside, or ducks and shirks 
under your knife : — no effect but that of splashing 
up the water against your hand :— 

y ■" dum te iugeret per flumina, prpeceps...... 

" Excidet — aut in aquas tenues dilapsas abibit/' 

41. (TO 

A tea-pot which won't pour except through the 
top — what you intend for your cup trickling down 
your fingers, into your sleeve, and over the cloth. 

42. (T.) 

As you are shaking a muffineer, (ditto a pepper- 
castor at diniier,) the cover springing off, — the 
whole contents instantly following the lively ex- 
ample. 



Ned Tes. 

■ " agmine facto* 

Qua data porta ruunt." Virg* 

43. (T.) 
Weak, bad, cold, cloudy coffee, with poor milk—* 
and but little of that.— Likewise, tea made with 
smoke, as well as water. 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C. 199 

44. (T.) 

Venturing upon a small egg with a large spoon, 
and so feeding your chin, your neckcloth, your fin- 
gers, and the cloth ; every thing, rn short — but your 
mouth ! 



Ned Tes. This is u ab ovo usque ad mala," 
with a vengeance ! — 

Sen. But we have had enough of break- 
fasting; — there remains only one meal more; 
and we have too often " supp'd full with hor- 
rors/' to doubt that we shall find a few more 
Miseries of the maw in that quarter ; e. g. — 

45. (S.) 
Suddenly discovering by the palate, instead of 
the nose, that you have let in a bad oyster ! 



Tes. Well ! — thank my Stars for having 
fitted me on a nose that is never taken with 
quite such an absent fit as that comes to ! — 
you have a pretty broad hint of your danger, 
indeed, from the enemy himself: — 

Ned Tes. — — — " talissese halitus atris 

Taudbus effundens, supera ad convexa ferebat. 
saavamque exhalat opaca Mephitim." Virg. 



£00 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Sen. Well quoted, Mr. Edward, — Come, 
Sir, {aside to old Testy,) we ought, now and 
then, to drop in a word of encouragement to 
our young friend, and his " parallels." — » 
Burke, in his celebrated treatise, has very 
pro; erly stated a stink to be among the sources 
of the sublime ; and, accordingly, who can 
read the above passages, which you have hap- 
pily brought together, and in which Virgil has 
so accurately described both the sight and 
smell of a bad oyster, without almost imagin- 
ing that the poet, before he composed them, 
must have placed one of the worst that he 
could get, under his own eye and nose, just 
by way of a bait for inspiration ? 

4(5. (S.) 

In eating lobster — getting the Lady, or half a 
dozen of the dead mans fingers, into your mouth, 
before you are aware. 

47. (T.) 
Dabbling and scalding your fingers through all 
the stages of an artichoke, in the vain hope that 
the next snatch, or nibble, will pay you better 
than the last. 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C. 201 

48. (S.) 

The repeated slips of a blunt oyster-knife against 
the palm of your left hand, as you are dislocating 
your right shoulder with labouring in vain at the 
wide end of the shell. 



Tes. Very provoking, certainly — were it 
not that some of your oysters very kindly 
make you amends for the stubbornness of 
others, by opening of themselves! — But, if 
you are fond of oysters, I'll give you enough 
of them : — 

49. (T.) 

Supping upon roasted oysters™— with the snatch- 
ing, and burning, and hissing, and griming, and 
cluttering, that go with it — leading you no comfort 
but in thinking of the moment, when all will be 
swept away, and the water glasses brought round. 



Sen. The following I forgot to introduce, 
among the delights of a dinner. 

50. (S.) 

The purgatorial interval after you have all dined, 



202 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

and before the servants have taken every thing 
(particularly themselves) away, and finally shut the 
door. 



Ned Tes. " Mixtis servitiis, et dissono cla- 
more/' (I^c.) 

Sen. Such are the three celebrated meals 
of man ' — Here, then, we will wind up the 
u Miseries of eating and drinking" — unless a 
few other promiscuous griefs of the palate, 
no* reducible to the above heads, should occur 
to either of us :— yes — 

51. (S.) 

The infatuation of mumping your way through a 
large and very sour apple, though you are soon 
reduced to your fore-teeth {grinders hors de combat 
at the first craunch,) and would give your life that 
it were all well over. 



Tes. Why, this is Fluellen and Pistol all 
in one l—F/utl. " Pite, pite, I pray you !" 
—Pist. " Must I bite V'—Fluel. " Yes, cer- 
tainly, and out of doubt, and out of questions, 
too, and ambiguities." — Pist* < ( I eat, -and 
cat, and swear !" 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C. £03 

52 (S.) 

' Cracking -a hard nut' with your teeth, and filling 
the gap left by the grinder you have knocked out, 
with black bitter dust. 



Tes. This is (e worse than worst !" — more 
than even the demons themselves are able to 
bear : — 

< " they, instead of fruit , 



Chew'd bitter ashes, which tlv offended taste 
With spalt'ring noise rejected." Milt. 

53. (T.) 

When parched with thirst, opening your last bot- 
tle of spruce beer, and finding it so very good, that 
it first washes your face and hands, and then your 
walls and furniture, with the whole of its contents. 



Sen. Nay, the contrary is quite v as bad, viz. 

54. (S.) 

At the instant of drawing the cork, starting back, 
from the eagerly expected burst-of froth — but with- 
out the least occasion either for your hopes, or fears 
—the liquor all remaining in the bottle, as quiet as 
a lamb. 



204 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

55. (T.) 

In preparing mulled wine for yourself and friends 
— after it has remained the proper time upon the 
fire, and just as you are taking it off, and all are 
rousing for the regale — seeing an avalanche of soot 
plump into the pot ! 

56. (S.) 

While you are swallowing a raspberry, discovering 
by its taste, that you have been so unhappy as to 
occasion the death of a harmless insect ! 

57. (T.) 

Your tongue coming in contact with the skin of 
a peach. 



Sen. Yes, or even the mind coming in con- 
tact with the idea ! 

58. (T.) 
Your sensations about the throat and chest, after 
Laving too hastily forced down a piece of very hard 
dry biscuit— just as if you were swallowing a nut- 
meg-grater three or four yards long. 



Tes. " The pleasures of the table !" — yes — 
a sly ironical rogue was he that first hit upon 



MISERIES OF THE TABLE, &C 205 

that expression.- — I fancy my dog Rover, 
there, if we could understand him, would give 
us a much better account of the pleasures 
under the table: — for there he gnaws his 
bone in comfort, without asking any questions 
about the cookery — and what is best of all, 
he is not considered as one of the company. 

Sen. No; and besides, ^e modestly keeps his 
hunger in the back ground ; while men can- 
not obey this coarse necessity, without assem- 
bling from all quarters, to see each other first 
go through the vile operation, and then rince 
and scour away its effects — nay, without tell- 
ing the rest of the county, by sound of bell, 
what a delicate scene is going on in the dining- 



room 



Tes. Aye — this is one of the blessings of 
having what they call " a good house over 
one's head !" 

Sen. Yes; — one, as you say; — but it is only 
one out of a million : there are other rooms 
in a house besides the dining-room, you know 
• — and this leads me to propose these as the 
next subject of our animadversions, under the 
general title of u Miseries Domestic." 

Tes. A better there cannot be, and I will 



205 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE," 

again undertake to play my part to admira* 
tion— whatever Madam Testy, in the corner, 
yonder, may think of the matter. You can't 
propose a meeting upon it too early for me™ 
tomorrow, if you please. 

Sen. It must be not only tomorrow, but 
" tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow," 
if we mean to exhaust it; — as there is so 
much to be said, then, we cannot begin too 
soon, as you say ; and especially, as the sor- 
rows we have in view may be said to come so 
very home to us, and, (in the mercantile lan- 
guage) are so constantly u in the course of 
arrival," that w T e require no preparation, as on 
most former occasions. 

Tes. Breakfast, and pass the day with me 
tomorrow :— if we begin then, we shall have 
some chance of coming to a conclusion by 
bed time. 

Sen. I will attend you ; and, short as the 
notice is, I'll engage that the list will be 
lengthened, on both sides, by many a Groan 
that will escape us in the interval. 

Tes. Ten o'clock precisely, mind,— or I sit 
down without you* 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 207 



DIALOGUE THE TENTH, 

MISERIES DOMESTIC ; INCLUDING TH& 
DRESSING-ROOM, AND BED-CHAMBER, 



Testy, Senior and Junior. — Sensitive. (Testy'g 
House.) 

Testy. 

IS it down, Sensitive ; sit down.— -I wish yoi* 
may be able to make out any thing like a 
meal ; we should have had a rare opportunity 
for remarks, here, if we had not lately taken 
such good care of the breakfast table in that 
way. — As it is, make yourself as little of a 
wretch as you can. — You would have had 
neither tea nor sugar, I can tell you, if I had 
not kicked open the tea-chest, a minute before 
you came in \ for Mrs. Testy., as usual with 



£08 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

her when she gads, has gadded off with every 
key in the house. — Come, begin, begin ! — I 
have ordered as few things as possible for 
your breakfast, that you may have a negative 
chance of comfort, at least. I have taken 
care that there should be no coffee for you ;-— 
for there is not a jade, or a scoundrel in n^ 
kitchen, that I could ever yet get to wait for 
the third bubble; nor any cocoa, neither, — - 
for I would not poison you with a thousand 
bubbles, which they do wait for; — and as for 
cold meaty and such things, I should be sorry 
to give my friend the orts of the cat, who 
they always contrive should be first served, 
by carefully leaving open the pantry door : — 
I'll order up some butter, if you desire it— 
you'll only excuse me from tasting it when it 
comes, that's all ! 

Sen. You are very attentive indeed, my 
good sir ; — and I will n*ake the best of what 
remains, after you have so kindly impove- 
rished the table for my benefit. 

Tes. Well, but — there is no time to be 
lost, you know — we have only one whole day 
before us, into which we have to cram the 
crosses of our whole domestic lives past : — 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 209 

besides, I am so fearful of forgetting a groan 
extorted from me, two hours ago, by one of 
my female " caterpillars" ('<\s a friend of mine 
ought to be worshipped for having nick- 
named servants,) that I must have it out at 
once : 

GiROAN 1. (T.) 

Getting up early in a cold, gloomy morning' 
(quite enough already, you'll say ; but that's not 
half of it.) — Getting up early in a cold gloomy 
morning, I say, — and on running down into the 
breakfast-room for warmth and comfort, finding 
chairs, tables, shovel, poker, tongs, and fender, 
huddled into the middle of the room — dust flying 
in all directions — carpet tossed backwards — floor 
newly washed — windows wide open — bees-wax, 
brush, and rubber, in one corner — brooms, mops, 
and pails, in another— and a dingy Drab on her 
knees, before an empty grate. 



There's a set of jewels for our cabinet of 
x < Miseries!*-— all of the first water, and in 
the rightest order for our use! — 

Sen. I had myself intended to open with 
smother of the same species— but you have 
struck me dumb. 

F 



210 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Tes. Pho, pho ! — let's have it; when a 
diamond does not come in the way, we must 
put up with a pearl. 

Sen. Well, then — if you won't despise me, 

2. (S.) 

Having to pass the maid as she is scouring the 
stairs ; — to which I intended to add-— seeing, hear- 
ing, or guessing, any thing at all of the matter, 
when washing or drying are going on in the house : 
— or, what is worse still, having to duck, and flap 
your way through lines, or rather lanes, of clammy 
clothes, just hung out to dry. 

3. (T.) 

On coming into the room, frost-bitten, — attempt- 
ing to stir a very compact fire with a red hot poker, 
which, from being worn to a thread towards the 
bottom, bends double at the slightest touch, with- 
out discomposing a coal. 



Sen. Yes: or, on the other hand, 

. 4. (S,) 

Raising them too much, when the grate is over- 
charged ; and so, notwithstanding all your caution, 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 211 

disposing the live coals over the carpet* and among 
the petticoats of the ladies. 

5. (S.) 

Feeling your arm and elbow cold — and, on look- 
ing farther into the matter, perceiving that you 
have long been leaning in slop, which has dabbled 
you to the skin. 

6. (T.) 

Squatting plump on an unsuspected cat in your 
chair. 

7. (T.) 

At going to bed — after having toiled, scorched, 
and melted yourself, in raking out a large and ob- 
stinate fire, which, at last, you seem to have effected 
—seeing it, as you turn round at the door, burning 
and roaring up far more fiercely than ever. 



Sen. Aye, and this, two fires, instead of 
one. 

8. (T,) 

In attempting to throw up cinders, oversetting 
and scattering them far and wide, by dashing the 
edge of the shovel, as if with a violent determina- 
tion, against the upper bar of the grater 



212 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

■ 

9. (T.) 

Fumbling in vain at a rusty refractory door-lock, 
of which the hasp flies backward, and there sticks, 
— so that you are at last obliged to leave the door 
flapping and whining on its unoiled hinge, and 
fanning you into an ague — your own fury furnish- 
ing ihefever. 

10. (T.) 

Sitting for hours before a smoky chimney, like a 
Hottentot in a craal ;— then, just as your sufferings 
seem, at last, to be at an end — puff, puff ! — whiff, 
whiff! — again, far more furiously than ever. 

11. (T.) 

Waking, stiff and frozen, from a long sleep in 
your chair, by the fire-side ; then crouching closer 
and closer over the miserable embers, for want of 
courage to go up to bed ; and so, keeping in the 
cold to be warm ! — when you go at last) your candle 
stinks out in the passage, and you are left to grope 
your way, blundering, and breaking your shins at 
every step, against the bannisters ; — every stair, 
too, creaking and groaning under your weight, 
though you tread as tenderly as possible, for fear 
of waking the house, consisting chiefly of invalids, 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 213 

whom you feel that you are rousing, one after 
another, from their dozes, as you pass their several 
doors. 

12. (S.) 
Elbowing both your candles off the table, and 
then setting them up in this state : 




13. (T.) 

Toiling at a rotten cork with a broken screw y 
and so dragging it out piece-meal — except the frag- 
ments which drop into the bottle, 

14. (S.) 

Grinding coals or cinders into the carpet, in 
turning upon your heel ;— then, after stooping, in 
a frenzy, to pick up the filthy fragments, and at last 
walking away satisfied that you have done so, — 



214 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

crushing fresh parcels of them in other parts ;— -and 
so on for an hour. 

15 (S.) 

After taking infinite pains to paste a drawing, or 
other choice thing, very nicely, seeing the paper, 
with all your pressing and smoothing in one part, 
start up in a thousand bulbous blisters in other 
places. 

16. (S.) 

Just as you have finished dressing yourself more 
nicely than usual, to receive company at dinner, — 
creeping down into a dark, damp cellar, for wine ; 
and unexpectedly finding, from a sudden chill about 
the lower part of the leg, that you are going by 
water. 

37. (T.) 

Setting your breakfast-kettle — (I forgot this in 
its proper place) — Setting your breakfast-kettle on 
coals which, though very free of their smoke, you 
cannot, by any arguments, induce to afford you a 
flame. 

18. (S.) 

Losing the keys of all your most private repo- 
sitories ; by which you suffer a double embarrass- 
ment— -that you cannot, yourself^ get at what you 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 215 

want ; and that they have, probably, fallen into 
the hands of others, who both can, and will. 

19. (S.) 

After having ordered from London some article of 
dress, furniture, ornament, &c. to be made on some 
particular model, which you had most solicitously 
explained to the workman before you went into the 
country — receiving it, at length, at the moment 
when it is most wanted — with this only draw-back 
on your satisfaction, that it is so perversely wrong, 
in all possible respects, as to be absolutely useless 1 

20. (S.) 

Going on with a servant in whose honesty you 
have strong reasons for suspecting a leak, though 
not quite strong enough to warrant you in pro- 
ceeding to a close charge, and search. 

21. (T.) 

Beginning your residence at the country-house 
to which you have just removed, before the repairs 
are finished — with the comfort of picking your way 
from one ruined room to another, through fragments 
of peeled mortar, broken bricks, scattered axes, 
adzes, chissels, &c— and, at length, being invaded 



216 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

in the fortress of your Study, and there pursuing 
your meditations to the sound of hammers, files, 
saws, tumbling walls, &c. &c. ; — not to mention 
the manner in which you drag on your domestic 
existence for a long time, before half the furniture, 
utensils, &c. from your late house, have arrived ; 
to wit— bed-chambers blocked up with matted 
trunks, bureaux, &c. — not a curtain, or carpet, to 
cover the nakedness of the sitting- rooms, &c. &c.— - 
Then for your ortz/?g-accommodations — dinner 
dressed by the housemaid, with extempore spits, 
saucepans, &c. en attendant the arrival of the bona" 
iide cook, and her apparatus — every dish, as it is 
brought in, carrying a " noli me tangere" on the 
face of it, and, such as it is, being served up on the 
kitchen table, with a set-out of crockery, from the 
same apartment — tea-spoons to the salt-cellars, or 
rather egg-cups, as their proxies — a man's white 
knife, to a child's green fork, &c.&c.' — no alliance, 
as yet formed, with the butcher, baker, carrier, &c. 
&c. — and lastly, when your time, with all these 
loads upon it, begins to bang a little heavy upon 
your hands— neither a clock to strike it, nor a book 
to kill it !— 



Sen. Why, my dear Sir, you seem so much 
in your element, while treating this particular 



MISERIES DOMESTIC, £17 

head of unhappiness, that I feel 

■ ' /' ■ " my Genius cow'd, 

As Antony's was b} Csesar :" — 

however, " nitor in adversum" is a noble 
motto ; — to resume then : — 

22. (S.) 

To be startled from a nap in your chair by a 
dazzling blaze of light, which, on examination, 
proves to proceed from your candles' having been 
each fluted down on one side by a foot and a half 
of lobbing wick, flooding the table, and every thing 
upon it, in a torrent of tallow, which descends in 
a cataract to the carpet. 



Tes. Why, there, your candles have out- 
shone mine ; — for I was going to say 

23. (T.) 
Reading or writing by one candle, and that so 
dim, that it would give no light, but for a fresh 
thief which rises in it every moment, and per- 
petually calls you from your book, or letter, to 
poke it off: — 



£18 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Sen. In doing which, you find your paper 
always ready to receive it. 

2*. (T.) 
In default of a turn-screw, labouring with the 
back, or battering the edge, of a good knife, at a 
notch infamously wide and shallow; so that it 
slips out of its place an hundred times over, without 
moving the screw an hair's breadth. — Likewise, 

25. (T.) 

Hammering your own fingers, instead of a very 
short nail, which you fumblingly hold in them — 
said nail, when you do hit it, curling at the point, 
instead of entering the wall — or losing its head, so 
that you cannot extract it : — likewise, the head of 
the hammer violently flying off, so as to break a 
looking-glass — a friend's skull, — &c. &c. 

26\ (T.) 
Vainly hunting, a thousand times over,*in every 
corner, crook, and cranny of the house, for some- 
thing you have lost ; — till, at some future period, 
when you have long ago abandoned the pursuit, the 
truant article appears of its own accord. 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. £19 

$e?i. Yes — but not until you have entirely 
ceased to want it. 

24.^ (S.) 

The harrowing necessity of asking a person to 
dine in your house, who is in that critical class of 
life which makes him not quite a proper guest at 
your own table, and at the same time, a few grades 
too high for that of the servants : — no second table. 

23. (T.) 

Your watch-key having worn itself round ; so 
that it amuses you with spinning, by itself, upon its 
square pin. of which it was once so fond, as never 
to think of moving without it. 



Ned Tes. Aye — Horace, long before the 
invention of watches, prophesied this Misery 
very exactly, in his — " routat quad rata ro- 

iundis." 

29. (S.) 

t 
Finding, as you rise to take leave of a company, 

that )ou have been sitting for an hour, with half 

the carpet dragged up by the hind legs of your 

chair ; — or. seeing the same crime committed by 



220 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

another, whose awkwardness is far beyond the 
reach of admonition. 

30. (S.) 
The snuffers scattering their contents over the 
card-table ; while, in trying to remedy the afflic- 
tion, you crush the black mischief into the green 
cloth, from which it spreads to the cards, and 
thence to your fingers, with the rapidity (and al- 
most the fatality) of poison. — Likewise, 

31. (SO 

Carrying a flat candle-stick in such a manner 
that the snuffers (not to mention the extinguisher) 
tilt off, open in their fall, and scatter their contents 
over the carpet. 

32. (T.) 

Dropping something, when you are either too 
lame, or too lazy, to get up for it ; and almost 
breaking your ribs, and quite throwing yourself 
down, by stretching down to it over the arm of your 
chair, without reaching it at last. 

33. (S.) 

The interval between breaking a> pane of glass, 
and the arrival of the glazier : — N. B. The aspect 
of the apartment (your constant sitting-room) 
E. N. E. and the wind setting in full from that 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 221 

quarter, at the crisis of the affliction : — glazier a 
drunkard, living seven miles off. 

34. (T.) 

Pulling at an elastic bell-rope, which you either 
break from the cramp, without sounding the bell, 
or tug repeaHklly, (thinking that it does not ring, 
when it does,) so as to bring up a wrong servant. 

35. (T.) 

A pair of rusty tongs, which, in opening, stick 
astride, so that you cannot manage them with one 
hand ; and even when you have forced them with 
the help of the other, still will not meet at the 
pinching part, but let slip every coal that is at all 
smaller than your head. 

36. (T.) 

Flapping at an expiring fire with an asthmatic 
pair of bellows. 

37- (T.) 
Scizzars that pinch, instead of cutting. 

38. (T.) 

Bottling off liquors — and all the stooping, cork- 
haggling, finger-freezing, rim-hammering, bottle- 
breaking, stocking-slopping, nose-poisoning, &c. 



2'22 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

which you have to go through for a whole morning 
together. 

39. (T.) 

Grubbing in the spoiled key-hole of your locked 
trunk, or drawer, with the wrong key — which you 
presently spoil also ; and this, when it is of the ut- 
most moment that you should instantly get at the 
thing wanted : — no blacksmith within many miles. 

40. (T.) 

Being told by your servant, at the beginning of 
a hard winter, that the coals are almost out : — 
then, on immediately ordering in a large supply, 
receiving for answer, that the coals are all locked 
up in the River by the frost ; but that, as soon as 
the cold weather is over, you may have any quan- 
tity you like ! 

41. (S.) 

A cup-board in the parlour in which you are 
making love — with the consequent perpetual in- 
trusion of one prying servant after another, clatter- 
ing among the shelves with glasses, tea-things, &c. 
■s — and all this, just towards the crisis of reciprocal 
confessions ! 

42. (T.) 

Vainly attempting, when in great haste, to make 



MISERIES DOMESTIC 223 

a very hard lump o' sugar melt double tides, by- 
pushing and pressing it against the side of the 
tumbler : — no effect but that of slipping off the 
spoon with a jerk, and splashing up the hot liquor 
into your own eyes, 

43. (T.) 

Coffee brought in a cup without a saucer — and 
so full, that the slightest motion of the spoon 
spills the hot staining liquor on your new nankeens: 
— cream out of the question, as the cup was at first 
too full to hold another drop. — To crown all, you 
have to seem quite easy in mind and body. 

44. (S.) 

Attempting, for half an hour together, to fit a 
pencil to its case : — when you seem, at length, to 
have effected it, and have put them sociably toge- 
ther into your pocket, taking out, five minutes after- 
wards, the empty case, and then the solitary pencil, 
with its point broken short off; — likewise, in taking 
out your pencil on the road to make memoranda, 
finding that the mineral has effectually eloped from 
the vegetable part of the instrument. 

45. (S.) 

Cleansing the Augean stables; — or, in other 
words, undertaking the labour of digesting into its 



224 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

prop r place each of a thousand different articles, of 
as many different uses, sorts, and sizes — (books - 
phials — papers — fiddles — mathematical instruments 
— drawings, and knick-knacks without end — ) which 
ha^ e been for weeks, or months, accumulating upon 
the tables, chairs, and shelves of your library, and 
which no servant is able to set to rights — so that 
you have been, yourself, obliged to await the tardy- 
conjunction of activity and leisure, before you can 
enter upon the dreary drudgery of subduing them 
into arrangement. 

46. (S.) 
After dinner — dragging the table about the room 
for an hour over an uneven floor, in hopes of coax- 
ing it to stand on more than two legs — the remain- 
ing two hanging in the air ; so that, on the slightest 
touch, the liquors are rocked and tilted out of' the 
glasses, tumblers, &c. all over the board. — At 
length, when you are nearly destroyed already by 
the failure of all your efforts to persuade the floor 
and the table to make it up and be friends, suddenly 
giving yourself the coup-de-grace by one fatal 
straight-forward shove, which shuts in the leg on" 
the opposite side — instantly followed by a thunder- 
clap and earthquake, as the leaf drops, together 
with decanters, bumpers, fruit-plates, sweat-meats, 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 225 

strawberries and cream, &c. &c. &e. — leaving you 
in a state of mind. ...but I forbear ! 

" Homo sum; humani nihil a mealienum puto." 

Let it suffice to say that 

" Loud was the noise ! aghast was eve^y guest ! 
The women shriek'd, the men forsook the feast !" 

Dryd. 

47. (T.) 

Rummaging for half an hour in a disorderly tool- 
box for a nail, or screw, which when you have 
bruised and soiled your fingers to your taste, you 
are, at last, obliged to give up as hopeless. 

48. (T.) 

Reposing a fatal confidence in the stability of 
the fender, by resting your feet upon it with a pres- 
sure inwards, as you advance your face towards 
{he fire. 



NedTes. 

Possint ut juvenes visere fervidi, 
Multo non sine risu, 
Diiapsam in cineres/ace-m." 

49- (S.) 
Hearing and seeing the operation of shovelling 

e 



€26 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

cinders performed by a hardy and indefatigable 
hand — every scrape upon your ears sensibly steal- 
ing an inch from your span of life. 

50. (S.) 

In a chilling evening — just after you have care- 
fully stirred a very ticklish fire, disposing every 
coal in the most skilful and judicious of possible 
manners, and at the instant when one or two little 
flames are at length beginning to reward you by 
suddenly flashing out — seeing a boisterous blun- 
derer rush to the chimney, seize up the poker, and, 
at a single lunge, dash your structure into ruins. 

51. (T.) 

Attempting to light a candle, with its short wick 
so effectually crushed down and buried into the 
body of the tallow, that it cannot be set up ; while, 
in stooping it to the flame- of another candle, you 
only keep melting the grease in a stream over the 
table and carpet : when you have r at length, caught 
a precarious glimmer, it is extinguished as soon as 
you have crept to the door, or (what is worse) to 
the stairs, " nescius aurag fallacis !" — this, three or 
four times over. At last, to be sure, the wick 
attains its proper length ; — but, fair and softly ! — 
this advantage is purchased at the exorbitant price 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 221 

of seeing the well of tallow overflow its sides, and 
pour down a bumper into the socket. 

52. (T.) 

Haggling the nails of your right hand with a 
of blunt scizzars held in the left. 

53. (T.) 

Setting a razor on a sandy hone. 

54. (T.) 

Sitting, per-force, on a high, round-bottomed 
stool, vshen the chairs are all pre-occupied. 

55. (S.) 

Discovering, as you sit down to cards v. ith a 
strange party, that your hands, by rubbing against 
your new suit of mourning, or from having worn 
for the first time a pair of black glove?, are as 
dingy as a dyer's. 

56. (S.) 

The handle of a full tea-cup coming off in your 
hand, as you are raising it to your mouth. 



Tes. The handle of a tea-n//? ! what's that i 



22S MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

57- (T.) 
The handle of the tea-wrrc corning off in the 
servant's hand, as he is passing by you ! and this in 
such a manner, that though you break its fall with 
your leg, you, at the same time, break your leg 
with its fall — to say nothing of the contents, which 
in my own case, I did not find of a very healing 
nature ! 



Ned Tes. Why, as to oversetting the urn, 
father, 



omnium 



Versatur Urna, serius, ocius," you know. — 

I am sorry for your leg, though : — that part of 
the mischief your evil Genius seems to have 
thrown in without book. 

58. (S.) 
Being roused from a splenetic reverie by the 
sharp, short yelp of a half-murdered puppy ; — 
ditto by a clap on the thigh with the whole might 
of a fox-hunter, hot from the chase, accompanied 
with a view holla, and immediately followed by 
" Hark away, my boy ! — that's the cordial for low 
spirits!" 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 229 

59. (S.) 
Endeavouring, with a brush, to coax up dust, 
cinders, and other abominables, from a low hearth, 
against a suddenly-rising ridge, which constantly 
keeps returning them upon your hands. 

60. (S.) 
Sitting by, while a sinewy country-gentleman, 
without a nerve in his fabric, repeatedly applies a 
force that would raise Great To?n, to the cord of a 
little shrill bell (close by the door,) that answers 
with a touch, and keeps tingling till he begins 
asiain. 



This is bad enough, you will allow — and the 
case is not much mended, if you commit the 
offence yourself, as you sometimes do, from 
not knowing the easy character of the bell. 

Tes. Why no; one does not always for- 
give ones self for it, as you say ; 

u Sunt delicta, tamen, quibus ignovisse velimus ; 
Nam neque chorda sonum reddit, quam vult manus 
et mens." 

But when a rascal, 

" quamvis est monitus— chorda 
Semper oberrat cadem," — why, " venia caret/' 



230 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

which I translate, " he ought to have his 
head broke." 

61. (T.) 

The machinery of the window-sash abruptly 
striking work, in consequence of the flat refusal of 
all it parts to act in concert any longer— the leads 
sulking down in their holes, far below all sight and 
reach — the pullies resolutely standing out against 
all your efforts to turn them — the cords preterna- 
turally bowing and curtseying, out of their destined 
perpendicular — and the sash itself, instead of chear- 
fully and obsequiously waiting, as usual, for your 
guidance, now rudely and furiously slapping down, 
without a moment's warning, with the force (if 
not the effect) of a guillotine; — while, with all 
your lifting and lowering, and twitching and wheed- 
ling, you prove totally unable to compose the 
unhappy feuds which have thus suddenly and 
unaccountably broken out amongst the mechanical 
Powers ! 



We have now, I think, given a quietus to 
the parlour : — let us next, if you please, step 
up stairs, and give a peep into the Bedcham* 
her, and Dressing-room, where, I take it, we 



MISERIES DOMESTIC, £31 

shall not fiiid every thing just as it should 
be! 

Sen. That you may safely believe, Sir — as, 
indeed, the length of your remaining list, 
which seems far to out-number mine, suf- 
ficiently shews, — Begin, Mr. Testy : — this, as 
you said to me on the subject of Social Mi- 
series, is " your day." 

Tes. It is:— first, then, we'll attack the 
Dressing-room. 

62. (T.) 

After putting on your clean shirt, finding that 
the two bottom buttons of the collar have absconded; 
or, that they have unfolded themselves into two or 
three inches of straggling unmanageable wire : — no 
time to change. 

63. (T.) 

A»coat tight and short in the sleeves. 

64. (S.) 
Shaving after a frosty walk, (when the face is 
pimpled, skin tender, and hand tremulous,) with 
cold pump water, hard brush, roapy soap, and a 
blunt razor.— Likewise, shaving, with a blister be- 
hind each of your ears. 



£32 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Tes. A blunt razor, you may well say ; was 
there ever a smooth one ? " Radit iter liqui- 
dum" is no motto for any of mine, however. 

Mrs. Tes. A blunt razor, indeed ! — see 
what /have done, and hear my misery ; 

65. (Mrs. T.) 
Tearing your arm with a blunt pin in dressing; 
by which, to say nothing of the pain, you are cer- 
tain of looking like a sempstress for a week at least. 

66. (T.) 

As you enter the drawing-room,— discovering, in 
the act of making a low bow ? that the seam of your 
stocking affects the spiral, instead of the perpendi- 
cular. 

67. (T.) 

Repeatedly hitching, and breaking, the teeth of 
a fine-toothed comb in the same tender place, the 
feelings of which you had already exasperated by 
trying to appease the itching with your nail. 



Ned Tes. 

Jamque eadem digitis, jam pectine pulsat eburno." 

Virg. 
68. (T.) 

After having dropped out your sleeve-button, 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 233 

without knowing it, rashly thrusting your hand into 
the arm of your coat, and so carrying the shirt- 
sleeve in a bunch up to the shoulder — leaving your 
arm raw, cold, and bare. 

69- (T.) 

While you are waiting for a fresh supply of tooth- 
brushes — battering your teeth with the ivory, and 
pricking your gums with the bristles, of your old 
one, completely grubbed out in the middle — its few 
remaining hairs staring off horizontally on all sides. 



Sen. Let me finish your picture with a 
touch of horror that shall petrify the be- 
holder; — 

70. (S.) 

The moment in which a misgiving comes over 
you, that a servant has clandestinely assisted you 
in wearing it out ! 

71. (T.) 

After sweltering for an hour, on a hot day, iff an 
attempt to drag on a new and tight boot, being un- 
able to get it on, for want of size; or off, for want 
of a boot jack;— and so, dangling about the house 
like Prince Pretty man. 



234 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

72. (T.) 
In hastily putting on your shirt, (people waiting 
for you at dinner) stepping it in two : — no other 
clean. 



Ned Tes. 



• " qua se medio trudunt — tenues rumpunt 

tunicas." Virg. Georg. 

73. (T.) 
Vilely washed, and as vilely ironed linen, which 
you would not believe to have been in the tub, but 
for the reeking evidence of rank soap, or lie, by 
which your nose is satisfied of the fact. 

74. (S.) 
Mis-buttoning your waistcoat, (undiscovered till 
you have gone into company,) — so that the bottom 
button seems sent to Coventry by the rest, and 
wrings the shoulder by the tug on that side. 

75. (S.) 
Tying your neckcloth vilely, when you wish 
to be particularly seducing, (always the case !) and 
only making the matter worse the longer you fumble 
at it. 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. £35 

76. (T.) 
The points of the knee-buckle curving outwards; 
and so tearing your stocking, and raking your leg, 
every time you cross your legs. 

77. (T.) 

On leaving the house, rinding that you have lost 
one glove, and falsely hoping that you shall be less 
miserable by wearing the other single, than by 
going altogether bare-handed. 

78. (S.) 

The involuntary mortification of wearing a hair- 
shirt, in consequence of having inconsiderately been 
cropped after shifting. 

79- (S.) 

Patching powder on your hair with a bald, 
clotted puff — and this, when you are dressing to go 
to Her. 

80. (T.) 

In attempting to untie the strings of your drawers, 
at going to bed very sleepy, dragging them into a 
cluster, of hard knots — with your subsequent frenzy 
from nipping and picking at them for an hour, till 
your nails are sore : — no knife. 



235 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

Ned Tes. 

" Ille simu! manibus tendit divellerenodos,— 
" Clamores simul horreados ad sidera tollit !" 

Virg. 

81. (T.) 

Slipping your sleeve-button through a large 
button-hole ; or wedging it in a small one. 



Sen. Yes — or making ample room for your 
button, by breaking fairly through the hole at 
the weak end. 

82. (T.) 

In dressing to dine out — your last shoe-string 
breaking — one knee-buckle lost — the wrong coat 
brushed — hole found in your stocking after you are 
dressed, &c. &c. — all this, and much more, in- 
variably coming upon you like hail, at the moment 
when you are most belated. 

83. (T.) 

After having broken the ice in your bason, to 
wash your hands — dangling them before you like a 
dancing bear, while you ferret about in vain for a 
towel. 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 237 

84. (T.) 
In cleaning your teeth — numerous holes-full of 
bristles falling out at once, and clogging your jaws 
and throat, till you are choked; then, in endeavour- 
ing to pick away with your fingers what you cannot 
rince out, getting hold of only one bristle at a time : 

~ " pilos 



Paulatim vello ; et demo unum, demo et item unum, 

elusus ratione mentis acervi !" 

Hor. 



Ned Tes. 

" Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una?" 

Hor. 
85. (T.) 

In shaving — at the first onset, saluting your chin 
with a deep gash ; so that, through the remainder of 
the operation, your face and fingers are " dabbled 
in blood," which enrages you by flowing faster than 
you can wash it away ; — " fluidum lavit inde cruo- 
rem, — Dentibus infrendens gemitu!"— When you 
have, at length, done with the razor — the new de- 
lays which you have to encounter, (in an agony of 
haste,) by applying one impotent styptic after 
another ; and, to conclude, when, after endless 
attempts, you seem to kave finally dammed the 



238 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

flood, and, in that persuasion, have finished your 
dress, and are just leaving your chamber—* 4 elo- 
quar, an sileam ?" — seeing it burst out' afresh on 
your clean neckcloth ! 

86. (T.) 

A fob so much too small for your watch, that, in 
impatiently tugging out the latter, you either turn 
the lining inside outwards, or bring away the chain 
by itself. 

87- (T.) 

In dressing for dinner — your last clean shirt, 
when you have put it on, proving so dangerously 
damp, that, to save your life, (and what weaker 
motive would bring you to do it ?) you throw it 
off, and put on the cast garment in cold blood. 



Mrs. Tes. Why one would think, Mr. Testy, 
that you had neither wife nor servants, by 
your perpetual complaints about the " last 
shirt/' the " last night-cap/' and so forth. — 
Pray, how often have you been reduced to 
your last shirt, since you were married to me? 

Tes. Had you asked me to count the times 
that I have not, my lady, I could have an- 
swered you without the help of a pen and ink. 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 239 

88. (T.) 

In brushing your own coat, finding, as you get 
on, that every rub completely fixes in, instead of 
fetching out, the layer of powder with which it is 
covered. 

89. (S.) 

Loudly bursting three or four buttons of your 
light waistcoat, the fastenings of your braces, and 
the strings of your pantaloons behind, in fetching a 
deep sigh ! — dead silence in the company, at the 
moment of the melancholy explosion. 

SO. (T.) 

The two side-screws of your dressing-glass losing 
their power — (which happens in about a week after 
it has come home), so that, with all your twisting 
and twirling, you can never persuade it to remain 
upright ; but, as you sit before it, it will keep 
swinging and flapping upon your nose, 

m. (t.) 

Using a powder knife, which has (not merely sa 
blunt, but) so broad an edge, that it grounds the 
powder into your skin, instead of paring it away. 



240 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

9'2. (T.) 
Pushing np your shirt-sleeves for the purpose of 
washing your hands'— but so ineffectually, that in 
the midst of the operation, they fall and bag down 
over your wet, soapy wrists, 

S3. (T.) 

When dressing in violent haste — your braces 
becoming suddenly so entangled, that after fruit- 
lessly turning and winding them for half an hour in 
every possible direction, till you are raving mad, 
you are, at last, obliged to fasten them as you can, 
with the buckles inside outwards — straps twisted 
into hard knots, and girding and cutting your back 
and shoulders like spliced cords, &c. 

NedTes. 

« " centum vinctus ahenis 

Post tergum nodis, fremit horridus ore cruento !" 

Virg* 

94. (T.) 
Putting on a waistcoat which you find (too late) 
has lost its strings behind, so that it would take in 
all your family; and consequently, when you button 
in your coat, the bottom of the waistcoat struts out 
like a tent. 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 241 

94. (S.) 

Using a nail-brush that would serve for a wool- 
card — its bristles being in knots an inch apart, so 
that only two or three prickles at a time find their 
way under your nails, which they rake to the 
quick, without disturbing a particle of the contents* 

95. (T.) 

Entering your watch at the wrong opening, 
when it instantly dives to your knee, — where, for 
want of a lucky opportunity to extricate it, you 
continue to wear it. 



Sen. A mere trifle, Mr. Testy ; — hear me : 

S6. (S.) 
Eating a biscuit so unguardedly, that the crums, 
or rather crust-u\a, keep showering into your 
bosom ; — while, from the cause you have just men- 
tioned, you are under the necessity of cherishing 
them next to your skin, for the rest of the day — and 
a poor day of it you have ! — apropos of which, 
likewise, 

97- (S.) 
After having breakfasted in bed, to which you 
are confined,— rolling, through the rest of the day 



'242 MISERIES- OF HUMAN LIFE. 

and night, in crums, which are presently baked by 
your body into innumerable needles of crust. 

98. (T.) 

The feelings of your teeth and gums, when you 
have insulted them by an over-proportion of vitriol 
in a tooth powder, 

99- (T.) 
In lathering the face, before shaving, very early 
in the morning, while still half asleep — gaping so 
suddenly as to slap the full brush into your mouth : 
— so much for the benefits of early rising ! 

100. (S.) 

The sudden necessity of going to a shoe-maker's 
shop, on the desperate enterprize of trying to suit 
yourself, extempore, with a pair of boots ;— then, 
after dragging on and off his whole stock in trade, 
without once approaching to the mark, being fated 
to shuffle, or hobble away, at last, in a pair which 
you seem to have stolen. 

101. (T.) 

After rising, in a bitter frost, and going up to 
the washing-stand, — water frozen to the centre 
of every bottle; next having to stand, in an ague, 



MISERIES DOMESTIC, 243 

first till you have raised a torpid servant, then 
while the pump is thawed, &c. 

102. (T.) 
Seeing the beauty of your coat, whilst yet in its 
prime, daily yielding to those confounded spots 
which come you know not how, nor when ; and 
which no degree of care can prevent from mul- 
tiplying without mercy, till it is disfigured beyond 
all hope of recovery. 



-" non ego paucis 



Offendar ntaculis ; 

—but to see them spread by dozens in a day 
— there is no enduring it!— look here, for in- 
stance — and here — and here! — 

Sen. Nay, Mr. Testy, this Misery may be 
removed by sending your coat to the scourer. 

Tes. I must, I must ; — [Then, rubbing it here 
and there with his sleeve,] — " Out, damn'd 
spot ! — out, I say ! — one ! — two!— why then 
'tis time to do't!" — high time, indeed; — yes 
~I 8*88 send it to the scourer's. 

103. (T.) 
Pressing for a Ball by an ill^east looking-glass* 



£44 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

(not knowing it to be so at the time,) and so mourn* 
ing over your own unseasonable ugliness. 



There ! — that will do for one dose of the 
dressing-room ; — now for the Bed-chamber ; 

104, (T.) 

The night-cap half-slipping off, when you are to© 
sleepy to re-adjust it. 

105. (T.) 
Sleeping in an ill-roofed Attic story, while tor- 
rents of rain are falling all night — the leaky ceiling 
refreshing you, as you lie, with a shower-bath, fil- 
tered through the tester of your bed :— . 

" Quam — juvat somnos, imbre juvante 3 sequi !" 

Then, on rising, quite braced, in the morning, find- 
ing your stockings, neckcloth, &c. afloat! 

100. (T.) 

Waking in the middle of the night, in a state of 
raging thirst; eagerly blundering, in the dark, to 
the washing-stand ; and there, after preparing, with 
a firm grasp, to raise a large, full water-decanter to 
your mouth, — finding it fly up in your hand, as 
light as emptiness can make it!. 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. £45 

Sen. Yes; or, on the contrary, 

107. (5.) 

Finding the broad-mouthed pitcher, which you 
lift to your lips on the same occasion, so full, that, 
besides amply satisfying your thirst, it, at the same 
time, keeps cooling your heated body, and purifying 
your linen, with the overplus ! 

108. (T.) 

The two-fold torment inflicted by a flea — viz. 
first, the persecution to which he subjects you 
through the night ; secondly, the loss of your me- 
ditated revenge in the morning, by his hocus-pocus 
escapes — his unthought-of and incredible capers, 
leaps, and flings, from under your eager fingers, at 
the very instant when you seem in the act of...... 

nay, to have actually annihilated him. 

i( Miile fugit refugitque vias; at vividus" alter 

" Hreret hians ; jam, jamque tenet ? similisque 

tenenti 
Increpuit — moisu elusus !" Virg. 



Sen. O yes ! — I am quite at home in this 
Misery ; — " iritus et in cute novi." — This little 
Harlequin of the insect-race, seems, like his 



'246 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

brother the Biped, to consider his pursuers, as 
foes " quos fallere et effugere est triumphus." 
Hor. 

Ned Tes. But have you nothing to say 
against a bug, father ? — In London, at least, 
" these Bugs do fear us all !" Shak. 

109. (S.) 

Getting out of bed in the morning, after having 
had far too much sleep. 



Tes. To which I beg leave to " move as an 
amendment" — ox far too little. 

110. (S.) 

After tossing through a restless night, in sickness, 
sinking at last into a doze, from which you instantly 
start broad awake, with the joy of thinking, that 
you are falling asleep. 

111. (T.) 

At a strange house — jumping into a bed which 
^ou expect, and have desired, may be very hard; 
and instantly finding yourself buried in a valley of 
pap, between two mountains of feathers : — the night 
a dog-night. 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 247 

112. (T.) 

Scylla, or Charybdis — sleeping in damp sheets, 
or between the blankets. 

113. (S.) 

The hypochondriacal impression, under which 
you fancy, as you lie in bed, that your fingers are, 
each, as large as a woolsack — legs of the size of 
church-pillars, — pillow bigger than the bed of Ware, 
&c. &c. — and all this affair seeming to grow worse 
and worse every moment 1 



Tes. A plaguy instance of Virgil's " Major- 
que vicleri !" I must own. 

114. (S.) 
To be startled from your slumbers, all night long, 
by your windows, as they bang and thump, by fits, 
in the wind ; the floors and wainscot of you cham- 
ber, too, occasionally stretching and cracking like a 
ship, &c. &c. — till, at last, if you have any nerves, 
you go mad. 

115. (T.) 

The shrill, tiny buzz, or whizz, of gnats about 
your eyes, nose, and ears, through a sultry night. 



248 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Sen. If I were a joker like you, Mr. Testy, 
I might suggest that the little imps, provoking 
as they maybe, at least prevent you from 
over-sleeping yourself! 

■116. (S.) 
Finding that you have far — very far — very far 
indeed — from enough bed-clothes, as you get into 
bed, in a brandy-freezing night :—* House-maids all 
dead asleep hours ago. 

117. (T.) 

Being driven from one corner of the bed to ano" 
ther 5 by the sharp points of feathers, which stand up 
to receive you, on which ever side you turn. — - 



Ned Tes. 

Omne tulit punctum ! Hor. 

Sen. I 

u Restless he toss'd and tumbled, to and fro, 
And rolFd, and wriggled farther off, for woe V* 

Dryd. Wife of Bath. 

US. (T.) 
Waking with the pain of finding that you are 
doing your best to bite your own tongue off. 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 24Q 

Up. (T.) 
The sheet untucked, or too short, so as to bring 
your legs into close intimacy with the blanket. 

120. (T.) 

Being serenaded at your window, all night long, 
by the tender war-whoop of two cats, performed 
with all their demoniacal variations. 

121. (T.) 

Breaking the strings of your last night-cap, in 
tying it on. 

122. (T.) 

On going early to bed, with a violent fit of the 
ague, and entering your chamber in fuil expectation 
of finding the coast clear — finding, on the contrary, 
the bed not turned down, and a gauche Dawdle 
just beginning to introduce the warming-pan be- 
tween the sheets. 

123. (S.) 

While you are confined to your bed by sickness 
— the humours of a hired Nurse; who, among other 
attractions, likes ".a drap of comfort" — leaves your 
door wide open — stamps about the chamber like a 
horse in a boat — slops you, as you lie, with scalding 



250 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

possets — attacks the lire, instead of courting it,— - 
falls into a dead sleep the moment before you -want 
her, and then snores you down when you call to 
her — wakes you at the wrong hour to take your 
physic, and then gives you a dose of aqua-fortis for 
a composing draught ! &c. &c. &c. 

124. (T.) 

The flame (but not the smell) of your candle 
going out, as you lie sick ana" sleepless; leaving you 
at once, 

u Pertassum thafami, ta^da^que. ,, Virg. 

125. (S.) 

Suddenly recollecting, as you lie at a very late 
hour of a Lapland night, that you have neglected 
to see, as usual, that the fires are all safe, below;— 
then, after an agonizing interval of hesitation, 
crawling out, like a culprit, and quivering down 
stairs. 



Tes. You have robbed me, Sensitive ; all 
this happened to me last night, as I was just 
thinking to tell you : — O it was a snug job, 
to be sure {"« — as to myself, I had no scruple in 
determining that it would have been a world 
pleasanter, in sueh a night as that, to be 



MT&EK1BS DOMESTIC. 25-1 

roasted, than frozen, to death; but as Madam, 
there, seemed to think she had a sort of joint 
interest in the question, and was not altoge- 
ther satisfied with my way of deciding it, — . 
why, I e'en gave myself up to my fate. 

Seh. I am sorry to have unintentionally 
foreclosed one of your best evils; — but there 
seems to be one more at the end of your list, 
which, to judge from its length, must be at 
least as rich in wretchedness as any. 

Tes. Pretty well for that, I confess ; it's like 
a Lady's Postscript, which, they tell you, con- 
tains the essence of the letter ;— pray listen : 

126, (T.) 

Sleeping, on a sudden and desperate emergency, 
at a low lodging-house, et ses agremens ; — your 
head broken, at the outset, by the beam of your 
chamber-door, for ducking only a foot deep, in 
passing under it. Then for the interior — floor all 
hill and dale — no fire-place — one crazy chair; 
however, plenty of huge family -chests, quite 
hand)' ! all about your bed — a litter of sleepless 
brats hard by, with only a half-inch pannel be- 
tween their throats and your ears — Landlord plac- 
ing a running babe under their trebles^ by snoring,, 
like Polypheme, through the opposite boards— 



&S8 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

farthing-candle, without snuffers, or extinguisher— *- 
no night-cap, or one of stretching cotton, that takes 
in your shoulders— pillow left out— sheets of the 
sail-kind, newly sprinkledjfor the gentleman— * -knotty 
mattrass — no soap — only rain-water, and that a 
spoonful in a wine-bottle, all black at the bottom — 
a dram-glass for a tumbler — but one towel, or ra- 
ther duster, about six inches wide, counting in the 
holes,— house-maid's comb, and triangular scrap of 
looking-glass, exhibiting sundry curious stripes of 
day-light, left you as a memorial of the quicksilver 
almost all dead and gone ! its two or three surviving 
patches barely allowing you to play at bo-peep with 
a few fractions of your features by turns — scanty 
(if any) curtains — cat left under your bed, and 
kittening over you in the night, &c. &c, &c. On 
rising in the morning, (no one coming to open your 
windows) you break your nails in baffled attempts 
to find out, in the dark, the cramp principle upon 
which the shutters are fastened ; — no bell — or one 
attached to a flagging, fluttering wire, that answers 
only by rustily, and peevishly, jarring and buzzing 
along the mildewed walls, and mazy passages : after 
ten tugs, however, at the broken end of this iron 
thread, twisted round your bare wrist, (no handle !) 
you, at length, extort from the reclining clapper one 
•lead ting, which brings up, in the sequel, a gawky 



MISERIES DOMESTIC. 253 

Malkin, who snuffles to you through the door, and 
then mistakes all your orders : — all this while, you 
are shivering in your shirt, barefoot; your boots 
having been clawed away., (but not cleaned,) and 
no slippers left in ther room ! 



There ! — I hope my performance answers 
to my promises. — And now I'll give you a 
concluding Groan, compared with which all 
the rest are like the sighs of a sleeping baby; 
t — and what is more, it shall be uttered in a 
single word : — 

127. (T.) 
Servants ! 



Sen. There came a thunder-bolt, indeed! 
— that word is, in itself, a volume — it is the 
very prince of sweeping clauses. Swift, in- 
deed, has effectually forestalled us in this 
region of plagues, and often makes me wish 
that he had been as merciful as he is stout; 
for it costs me a severe fit of the bile, when- 
ever I open that cruelly elaborate catalogue 
of abominations, entitled « Directions to Ser- 
vants:" — more docile Disciples never re- 
warded the assiduity of a Teacher ! — And yet 



£34 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

it does not very well become me to complain 
of him, on this occasion; — for, when I have 
been applied to for a character, as it is termed, 
by one of these domestic Scourges, I have 
more than once referred the enquirer, to the 
proper chapter of the Dean's directions, as- 
suring the Lady, or Gentleman, that they 
were, in every instance, most punctually atten* 
ded to by the present applicant, while he con* 
tinued in my employment. 

Tes. No bad method, I confess — though 
not quite so short as mine. 

Sen. What may that be, my good Mr. 
Testy ? 

Tes. Kicking the rascal headlong down 
stars on the spot, the moment he asks me for 
a character. 

Sen- Compendious, certainly — and, as it 
should seem, not unlikely to disembarrass you, 
in a considerable degree, from future applica- 
tions of that nature. 

Tes. Yes, yes— it answers there, too:— 
but enough of the" caterpillars," which tor- 
ment us more than any other reptiles, because 
w r e are such fools that we woiit go on without 
'em. — Well, Sensitive, I begin to hope we 



miseries Domestic. 255 

have now pretty well exhausted c f Pandora's 
box/' as you call it, and that we may now sit 
down upon our old stock of Miseries, without 
going out upon the hunt after new ones. 

Sen. Nay, there are multitudes of Miseries 
beside those which are to be sought abroad. 
Turn your eyes^ for instance, upon your owa 
person, and tell me whether every joint, limb, 
and feature, js not a separate rendezvous for 
an innumerable legion of annoyances, which > 
though they do not suddenly destroy you, yet 
fail not in the end to wear you out by a 
harassing system of petty warfare, of irritating 
skirmishes, that allow you neither the recruit 
of rest, nor the glory of a battle. 

Tcs. Aye, aye- — I see plainly whereabout 
you are; — " Miseries Personal, or of the 
Body," as I take it, would be a fit title for the 
enemies you mean. — If I can't conquer them, 
you shall see, however, that I can count them 
— no man better. When shall we meet 
upon it ? 

Sen. As soon as my nerves shall be strength- 
ened, and your blood cooled, after this longest 
and hardest of all our days of difficulty. 
Tes. Well, then, as the Tough should wait 



£56 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

upon the Tender, I will abide the leisure of 
your worship's nerves; but, as to myself, it 
would be a long pause, indeed, as things go 
with me, if we should lie by, till I get into 
cold blood ! — And so, only let me know when 
you are man enough for another meeting, 
and you'll find me at your call. 



MISERIES PERSONAL, &C* 25J 

DIALOGUE THE ELEVENTH. 

MISERIES PERSONAL, OR OF THE BODY. 



Testy, Senior and Junior. — Sensitive. 

JTesty is muffled up about the face } with his 
handkerchief to his nose.] 

Sensitive. 

liow now, Sir? 
Tes. How? 

Groan 1. (T.) 
A villainous cold in the head ; blowing your nose 
Justify and frequently, till you are a walking nui- 
sance to all around you— but without any fruits, 
except a sharp twinging sensation in the nostrils, 
as the passages which you have forced open close 
ap again # with a shrill, thin, whining whistle ; 
s 



£53 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

— not to mention the necessity of disgusting your- 
self and friends by pronouncing M like B, and N 
like D, till you are well. 



Sen. Bad enough — but I have a worse.just 
now coming upon me: 






2. (S.) 
Being on the bri .... on the bri .... on the bri .... 

on the br .... (sneezes) ... ink of a sneeze for a 
quarter of an hour together; and yet, with all your 
gasping, and sobbing, never able to compass it. 

3. 0.) 

After over-fatigue, or watching — those self- 
invited starts, jeiks, or twitches, that fly aJbout the 
limbs and body, and come on with an indescribable 
kind of tingling, teiuing, gnawing restlessness; more 
especially towards bed-time. - 



Mrs, JeO§[es, yes, the fidgets — deuce take 
f em !— hut I did not know that mm knew any 
thing of the matter* 

Sen. JSot many -of us, Madam, I dare say ; 
but there are very few even among your Mi- 
series, of which I have not at least a smatter- 
ing knowledge. 



MISERIES PERSONAL, &C. 259 

8. (S.) 
Bending back the finger-nail — or even thinking 



of it. 



{Here a violent shriek from Mrs. Testy.) 

TqgW'hat now, Mrs. Testy f 

Hippies. What? why a much worse thing 
than 'Mr. Sensitive has just mentioned — what 
think you of 

5. (Mrs. T.) 

Receiving the first hint that your thimble has a 
hole worn through it, from the needle, as it runs, 
head and shoulders, under the nail. 

6. (T.) 

The sensation, from the hip downward, when 
your foot is fast asleep, and before the sharp 
shooting, which you have next to expect, has yet 
come on. 

7. (T.) 

Dreaming that you have a locked jaw, and seem- 
ing to wrench ojien your own head, in your con- 
vulsive efforts to speak or gaj|. 

8. (T.) 

A dozen or two of hiccups in the same breath. 



200 MISEEIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

9- (S.) 

In your sick-chamber — receiving a large parcel, 
which you expect to contain interesting books, or 
dainties, sent for your comfort by some kind friend ; 
and, on eagerly opening it, rinding only a myriad 
of fresh phials, and packets of medicines — -and this, 
too, when yo,u thought you had done with the 
doctor. 

10. (S.) 

Waiting for the operation of an emetic. 



Tes. Waiting for it ? — pho, pho ! — the ope~ 
ration itself is^uite bad enough for me — to 
sit by the hour, groaning, and hoping that 
each pull will be the last : 

u expectat dum dejluat amnis; at ille 

Labitur et labetur !" 



again ! 



A louder yet, and yet a louder strain !" 

And so you go on, as long as you can answer 
the draughts of U^confounded chamomile — 
till at last you Jem, hy being over-drawn : — ■ 
Waiting fur it, indeed ! 



MISERIES PERSONAL, StC. 201 

11. (T.) 

" Prato vivere Jiaso ;' i. e. A deep notch cut by 
an East Wind under each nostril, and which you 
tear open afresh, every time you blow your nose. 



Also— (and this is a pleasure I have soon to 
expect) — 

12. (T.) 

The state of your mouth at the winding up of a 
tremendous cold—your lips being metamorphosed 
into two boiling barrels, totally disqualified for the 
functions of eating, speaking, laughing, gaping, 
whistling, and — kissing. 



Sen. Nay, as to your last article, when / 
am in this vile condition, I let the ladies know 
nothing of the matter — 

u Necdum iilis labra admoveo, sed condita servo." 



13. (TO 

Suddenly and violently, scratching your ear, 
without recollecting to respect the feelings of an 
excruciating pimple with which it is infested. - 



262 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Sen. Yes, the « vellit aurem," without the 
" admonuit/' is a sad mistake, indeed ! 

14. (T.) 
Having this kind of tooth drawn by instalments 




See here ! — I have treasured all the frag- 
ments, along with these pretty pieces of wreck 
from the jaw, which bore them company — 
that they might serve as mementos > in case I 
should ever find myself iri the humour of 
parting with any more of my head ! 

15. (T.) 

Battering your own knuckles, or jarring the 
touchy part of your elbow, against the edge of the 
table, as if with a hearty good-will. 

Having some cutaneous complaint, of which the 
principal feature is a furious and constant itching — 
yet being rigidly interdicted the use of your nails. 



MISERIES PERSONAL, 8CC. r 63 



n. (t.) 

After having, with great labour, succeeded in 
dragging on a new and very tight boot — receiving 
strong and incessant hints from a hornet at the bot- 
tom, that he does not like his confinement: — no 
boot-jack at hand 10 second your anxiety to relieve 
him, and the poor prisoner still jerking away! 

18. (S.) 

The face or hands suddenly and unaccountably 
begrimed with that mysterious sort of filth, which, 
as soon as you have, with great difficulty, scoured 
it away, returns again and again more liberally 
than ever. 

IP- (S.) 
Your real sensations, during the pretended in- 
difference with which you sit to be tickled, by a 
celebrated tickler, in the most sensitive parts of 
the body. 

20. (S.) 
On standing up, and stretching yourself, after 
sitting long over books or pagers — the sudden ru*!i 
of blood to the head, and c^HRequent giddiness and 
staggering, with which you are punished for your 
sober excess. 



564 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

21. (S.) 
The ends of your finger-nails becoming rough 
and ragged, so as to catch, and pull away, the 
wool, or threads, of worsted, cotton, &c. 

22. (T.) 

After long reclining, with every limb disposed in 
some peculiarly luxurious manner— to be suddenly 
routed from your lounge ! then, endeavouring in 
vain to re-establish yourself in your former posture, 
of which you have forgotten the particulars, though 
you recollect the enjoyment — every new attempt 
leaving a certain void in your comfort, which no- 
thing can supply : 

' a in ev'ry varied posture, 

How widow'd ev'ry thought of ev'ry joy !" 

Young* 

23. (S.) 

Trying in vain to tamper with an approaching fit 
of the cramp, by stretching out your limbs, and 
lying as still as a mouse. 

24. (S.) 

In sickness— the tender persecution you undergo 
from your female friends, while, after a restless 
night, you are beginning, towards the evening of 



Miseries personal, &c. 265 

the following day, to drop into a delicious doze in 
your chair; but which they will, on no account, 
suffer you to enjoy, settling it with each other that 
you are to be carefully shaken, and well tormented, 
every half minute — one crying " Don't go to sleep 1" 
-^another, " you had better go to bed !" — a third, 
" you'll certainly take cold !"— a fourth, you'll 
spoil your rest at night," &c. &c. 



Ned Tes. 

" alterius sic 



Altera poscit opem, et conjurat amich Hor. 

25. (T.) 

Labouring in vain to disentangle your medicine- 
scales ; till, after fretting, twisting, and twirling, for 
half the morning, to no purpose, you are, at last, 
obliged to weigh your dose (Tartar Emetic, or 
James's Powders,) as you can, with all the strings 
in a Gordian knot— one scale topsy-turvy, and the 
other turvy-topsy, &c. 



Sen. Yes ; — and this when, 

" If thou tak'st more or less, be it but so much 
As makes it light, or heavy, in the substance, 
Or the division, of the twentieth part 



266 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

Of one poor scruple — nay, if the scale turn 

But in the estimation of a hair,. 

Thou diest. Merck, of Vau 

26. (SO 

The interval between the dentist's confession that 
your tooth will be very difficult to draw, and the 
commencement of the attempt. 

27. (TO 

Groping and stirring with a needle after a thorn 
in your finger, in hopes of wheedling out the peep- 
ing black atom; which, however, proves too cunning 
at last, for you, and your needle to help you. 

23. (S.) 
In a fire-side circle — sitting with your head close 
to a gaping cranny, which keeps up a steady whis- 
per full in your ear, the whole evening long ; a 
whisper, however, from which you, at least, learn 
something — the nature of the ear-ache ! 

29- (S.) 

Rashly confessing that you have a slight cold, in 

the hearing of certain elderly ladies of the faculty, 

who instantly form themselves into a consultation 

upon your case, and assail you with a volley oi 



MISERIES PERSONAL,, &C. £67 

nostrums, all of which, if you would have a mo- 
ment's peace, you must solemnly promise to take off 
before night — though well satisfied that they would 
retaliate, by taking you off before morning ! 

30. (T.) 

When in the gout— receiving the ruinous saluta- 
tion of a muscular friend (a sea-captain) who, 
seizing your hand in the first transports of a sud- 
den meeting, affectionately crumbles your chalky 
knuckles with the gripe of a grappling-iron ; and 
then, further confirms his regard for you, by greet- 
ing your tenderest toe with the stamp of a charger. 



Sen. O, the ruthless ruffian ! 

Tes. Ruthless! — Mr. Sensitive, I actually 
went mad on the spot with pain and rage. 

Sen. And, in your raving fit, you did not 
exclaim, I dare say, 



-" recepto 



Dulce mihi furere est amico V 9 Hor. 

Tes. No, you may venture to think not ; — 
I left that quotation for my friend, who, to do 
him justice, seemed to feel the beauty of the 
sentiment in all its force ; and unluckily for 



MISEBIES OP HUMAN LIFE. 

me, to wish that I should feel it too ! — But 
let us get on : — 

31. (T.) 

The buzz of a struggling insect who has limed 
himself in your ear. 



Sen. A disagreeable intrusion, without dis- 
pute; — but I should think that the insect you 
■formerly mentioned, which domiciliated itself 
in your eyt y must have enraged you still more. 

Ned Tes. 

" Segnitis irritant animos demissa per aures, 
Quam qu» sunt oculis subjecta." Hor. 

Tes. Well, well, you and Horace may settle 
that difficulty between you, for I cannot;— 
though it is not for want of pretty good ex- 
perience in both ; for I seldom pass a day 
without an opportunity of comparing notes 
between the two ; — one would think I was all 
over eyes and ears, like Virgil's Fame. — But, 
come, have you any more ready misery in 
pocket? — For my part, I find that, for the 
present, my memory is out. 

Sen, And mine ; — but only, for the present ; 



MISERIES PERSONAL, &C. %6Q 

—for, in the first place, the surface of the 
body presents far too many points of contact 
to 

" The slings and airows of outrageous fortune," 

to leave us any hope that we have yet been 
visited in every vulnerable part ; and in the 
next place, the weapons of that goddess are 
far too various in their forms, and natures, to 
let us flatter ourselves that she has already in- 
troduced us to the whole circle of her tortures. 
But though we have still a long arrear of 
individual " groans," I really believe that we 
bave, at length, exhausted the number of 
their general heads. All, therefore, that seems 
now to remain, is that, after a necessary in- 
terval of repose, we should meet once more, 
for the purpose of interchanging such miscel- 
laneous specimens of anguish as may have 
hitherto passed unnoticed in the great crowd 
of our complaints. 

And now, my friend, accept my cordial 
thanks for your diligent exertions as a fellow- 
labourer in the field of infelicity: — with res- 
pect to the comparative quality of the produce 
we have respectively gathered in, if mi/ 



£70 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

samples should be deemed superior in fine- 
ness, yours, on the other hand...... 

Tes. Blood and thunder! — are you there 
again i — Take care, Sensitive ! 

Sen. Nay, Sir, if you are in that mood, I 
am silent: — talking with you is like playing 
with a charged blunderbuss; one is always in 
danger of touching the trigger unawares. — 
Why, I thought that all this matter had been 
amicably adjusted between us, by mutual con- 
cessions, long ago : we have agreed, surely, 
that though each partakes, in a certain mea- 
sure, of the characteristics of the other, yet do 
I figure most in the mental, and you in the 
corporeal branch of suffering. This distinction 
being, as I had conceived, fully recognised 
on both sides, I was only going on to strike 
the balance between us, and ascertain, if I 
might, t yhSlTg upon the whole amount, is the 
veriest wretch of the two — be our several in- 
gredients of wretchedness what they may. 

Tes. Pho, pho .!— this is not a matter to be 
.arbitrated by the parties concerned ; and even, 
if it were, I can't think the discovery would 
pay the trouble =:—however, since you are so 



MISERIES PERSON AL, &C 2? 1 

very anxious for the honour and glory of being 
the most unlucky dog alive, there is Mrs. 
Testy, who has generally been sitting quietly 
at her needle in that corner, while we have 
been over our business; and as I think she 
can't well have helped overhearing our con- 
versation, (which, on my part, at least, has 
not been carried on in a whisper,) let us 
abide by her decision ; — and pray don't be 
afraid of any conjugal bias in the case; for I 
have so long been in the practice of making 
her the confidante of my distresses, without, 
perhaps, always stopping to enquire whether 
she was in the humour to hear them, that I 
am afraid her partiality as an arbi tress will be 
found quite unimpeachable !— Come, Madam, 
Testy, lay down your gewgaws, and let's have 
your judgment upon this knotty question.— 
I'll bet half a crown, Sensitive, that she gives 
jt for me after all. 

Sen. Done, Sir; and Mrs. Testy shall hold 
the stakes.— Now, my dear Madam, what is 
your sentence upon the case ? 

Mrs. Tes. O, pray don't ask me ; — I know 
nothing about your mind, and your matter, 
really : — for all I can see, you have both been 



272 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

making a great fuss about nothing, and so I 
shall leave you both to settle it between your- 
selves. All I do know, is that you, Mr. Testy, 
have made me miserable enough, by stunning 
me with your nonsensical complaints for six 
months together; — and so, as you both seem 
to like misery better than anything else, I will 
beg leave to read you a short list of some of 
my own troubles, which I have set down, at 
odd times, as I could spare myself from my 
household affairs, which I have been diligently 
carrying on for your comfort, Mr. Testy, 
while you have been alarming the nighbour- 
hood by sounding out your " Domestic Mi- 
series" like a town crier. — In short, whoever 
ought to be the winner, I know who ought not. 

Sen. There, Mr. Testy ! I think you will 
admit that you have fairly lost the wager. 

Tes. I deny it, Sir ; — she has not given it 
against me as yet ; and I'll soon see whether 
I can't persuade her to give it for me : — come, 
come, Madam, [angrily advancing towards 
her,'] 

Sen. Nay, Sir, this is too much; — you are 
certainly the loser, and ought, in honour, to 
pay the forfeit} but if you persist in refusing 



MISERIES PERSONAL, &C. 2?8 

it, — rather than see our fair Umpire accosted 
in such a manner on my account, I will con- 
sent to make it a drawn bet; and so let each 
take back his half-crown. 

Ned Tes, Aye, 

" Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 
Or both divide the crown" 

Mrs. Te$. Nay, Sir, I'm not to be brow- 
beaten out of justice, neither ; and so I deli- 
ver the whole crown to you, Mr. Sensitive. 
- Tes. Well, well, take it, then, — and I give 
you joy of your sorrow ; — you may now sing, 
with old Burton. 

" Nought so sweet as melancholy !" 

And so now, Mrs. Testy, for your miseries, if 
you please ; — produce your bit of ass's skin in 
a twinkling, and let us hear 

" furens quid foemina possit." 

Mrs. Tes. Yes, 1 can 

" answer thee in Sighs, keep pace 
With all thy woes, and count out tear for tear." 

You must take them as they come, Gentle- 
men ; for I had not time to throw them into 
any order. 



274 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE* 

Sigh 1. (Mrs. T.) 
After having invited a large party to dinner— 
within a few hours of their expected arrival, some 
of the most indispensable servants (cook in parti- 
cular) seized with the influenza, small-pox, &c. 
when it is quite too late either to look out for sub^ 
stitutes, or to put off the engagement. 

While playing on the piano-forte, being obsedee 
by the attentions of a courteous gentleman (quite 
ignorant of musick) who turns over the leaf of your 
music-book a dozen bars too soon, and in his zeal 
to be soon enough, pulls down the book on the keys, 
and one (if not both) the candles, into your lap. 



The two following befel me before I was 
Mrs. Testy. 

S. 

If you are a single woman, with a reasonable 

stock of delicacy and pride, — being rallied by a 

facetious gentleman, in a company where you are 

not very much known, on the subject of a husband.' 

If you are afflicted with the malady of Mushin 



MISERIES PERSONAL, &C. £75 

—to read in the complacent smile of a coxcomb 
who has accosted 3011, that he thinks you are 
interested in his attentions. 



5. 

A carriage which is of little or no use to you, 
because your coachman generally chooses either to 
be sick himself, or that his horses should be lame : 
— yet you are afraid to part with him, as unluckily 
he is a careful driver, and extremely sober, and you 
a great coward. 

6. 

A termagant cook, who suffers neither yourself 
nor your servants, to have a moment's peace — yet 
as she is an excellent cook, and -your husband a 
great epicure, (excuse me, Mr. Testy,) you are 
obliged to smother your feelings, and seem both 
blind and deaf to all her tantrums. 



Working, half-asleep, at a beautiful piece of fine 
netting, in the evening — and on returning to it in 
the morning, discovering that you have totally 
ruined it, 



£76 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

Ned Tes. 



postquam inter rctia ventum est; 



Substitit, infremuitque ferox, et inhorruit armos !" 

Virg. 
ft. 
Snapping your thread quite close to your work, 
so that you cannot join it without picking out the 
knot, — that is, breaking two or three loops. 

9. 

Being disappointed by a hair-dresser on a ball- 
night, when you have left your hair totally uncurled, 
in full dependence upon him : in this emergency, 
being obliged to accept the offered services of a kind 
female friend, who makes you an absolute fright ; 
but she being much older than yourself, and of ac-> 
knowledged judgment, you dare not pull it all to 
pieces, and if you should, you have neither time 
nor skill to put it to rights again. 

10. 

At a ball — being asked by two or three puppies 
11 why you don't dance ?" — and asked no more 
questions, by these, or any other gentlemen, on the 
subject: — on your return home, being pestered 
with examinations and cross examinations, whether 



MISERIES PERSONAL, &C. £77 

you danced — with whom you danced — why you 
did not dance — &c. &c; the friend with whom you 
went, complaining, all the time, of being worried to 
death with solicitations to dance, the whole evening. 

11. 

At a long table, after dinner, the eyes of the 
whole company drawn upon you by a loud ob- 
servation that you are strikingly like Mrs. or Miss 
particularly when you smile. 

12. 

The only thimble which you ever could get to fit 
you exactly, rolling off the table unheeded ; then- 
crushed to death in a moment by the splay foot of 
a servant. 

13. 

After having consumed three years on a piece of 
tambour-work, which has been the wonder of the 
female world, leaving it, on the very day you have 
finished it, in the hackney-coach, in which you 
were exultingly carrying it to the friend whom you 
intended to surprize with it as a present : afterwards, 
repeatedly advertising — all in vain. 

U. 

After dinner, when the ladies retire with you 



278 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

from a party of very pleasant men, having to en- 
tertain, as you can, half a score of empty, or formal 
females ; then, after a decent time has elapsed, 
and your patience and topics are equally exhausted, 
ringing for the tea, &c. which you sit making in 
despair, for above two hours ; having, three or four 
times, sent word to the gentlemen that it is ready, 
and overheard your husband, at the last message, 
answer M Very well — another bottle of wine." By 
the time that the tea and coffee are quite cold, they 
arrive, continuing, as they enter, and for an hour 
afterwards, their political disputes, occasionally sus- 
pended, on the part of the master of the house, by 
a reasonable complaint, to his lady, at the coldness 
of the coffee ; — soon after, the carriages are an- 
nounced, and the visitors disperse, 

15. 

On retiring, after dinner, without a female com- 
panion, being requested by one of the party to per- 
mit a stupid gawky boy of about 14 to accompany 
you : in this distress, you can neither have recourse, 
to books, of which he knows nothing, nor to music, 
which he declares himself to hate ; so that, after 
having extorted from him how many brothers and 
sisters he has, what school he goes to, and what are 
the games now in season, you are condemned to 



MISERIES PERSONAL, &C. 27Q 

total silence, which is interrupted only by the 
squeaks of your favourite puppy or kitten, as he 
amuses himself by pinching and plaguing it during 
the remainder of the tete-a-tete. 

iff. 

At a ball — when you have set your heart on 
dancing with ajparticular favourite, — at the moment 
when you delightedly see him advancing towards 
you, being briskly accosted by a conceited sim- 
pleton at your elbow, whom you cannot endure, 
but who obtains, (because you know not in what 
manner to refuse,) " the honour of you hand" for 
the evening. 



Sen, Upon my word, Madam, tolerably 
unhappy, for a lady 

Ned Tes. For a lady ! — nay, Sir, (€ JErum- 
nosa, et Miseriarum compos, Mitlier ;"— by 
which Plautus means, mother, that a Woman 
is, to the full, as much up to Misery as a 
Man. 

Se?i. You have interrupted me, Mr. Ed- 
ward ; I was going on to say — for a lady who 
enjoys the admiration of one sex, and the 
envy of the other. 



280 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

Mrs. Tes. There !— there !— Mr. Testy. 

Tes. O yes, Mrs. Testy, — there is Mr. 
Sensitive, as you say; and there is his polite- 
ness : — but where is his sincerity ? — 

Well, Sensitive, — we seem, then, to have 
pretty well prepared our briefs in this grand 
Calamity-Cause of ours, — save a few miscel- 
laneous items, to be added at our leisure :— I 
can't tell how long a time you will require to 
hearten yourself for the next consultation; 
all I can say is, that as you are Mind, you 
know, you must govern, of course ; and you 
will find Body at your service, whenever you 
may be pleased to ca,ll for it, 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 281 



DIALOGUE THE TWELFTH. 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 



Testy Senior and Junior. — Sensitive* 

Testy. 

Your servant, Sensitive ; — I am glad to see 
you wound up to another meeting ; when we 
last parted, your weights seemed to be quite 
down, I thought. Since that time, we have 
both been equally busy, I reckon, in gleaning 
up such little odd tortures, of all sorts, as we 
had left behind at our general harvest. For 
my own share, I have cocked up a tolerable 
shock of 'em. 

Sen. Mr. Testy, I am yours:— would I 
could add that I am my own! — but, to say 
the truth, the cruel necessity of retracing my 



£82 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

footsteps through so many galling journies of 
life, in quest of missing Miseries, or stray 
Groans, has well nigh overwhelmed me; noi* 
do I feel myself much enlivened by the pros- 
pect immediately before me, of counting over 
my collections. 

Tes. Cheer up, Sensitive! — remember our 
rivals ! — we are now within sight of the goal ; 
and wincing horses, like you and me, should 
scorn to complain of being a little out of wind 
in the race. 

Sen. I stand prepared, Sir : my motto, 
during my late search, has been 

M Stat casus renovare omnes, omnemque reverti 
Per Trojam, et rursus caput objectare pencils." 

To which I now add : 

ie Quanquam animus meminisse horret, luctuque 

refugit, 
Incipiam, 

Groan 1. (S.) 

Labouring in vain to do up a parcel, with scanty, 
weak, bursting paper ; and thin, short, rotten string. 

2. (T.) 

Drudging, late at night, for the twentieth time* 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 283 

over long rows of figures, in a vain attempt to re- 
concile sundry totals, differing by a single farthing. 



Ned Tes. Aye — that Misery is as old as 
Horace : 

" Infelix operis summa, quia ponere totum 
Nescit." 

3. (T.) 

Receiving a quantity of thin sixpences, in change, 
at a shop, and striving to pick up the separate pieces 
against the rim, or ridge of the counter — but with 
such crueUy short nails, and in such violent haste, 
that you barely raise the edge of the coin, so as to 
cut and gall the quick of your fingers, from which 
the piece drops flat every time. 

4. (S.) 

Hearing that your lottery -ticket is drawn a 
blank, just as you have snugly tiled in your castles 
in the air. 

5. (S) 

After the first, or prelusive squall of a fractious 
brat, whicli you had taken in your arms, to please 
its mother — the horrible pause during which you 
perceive that it is collecting breath to burst out 
with a fresh and recruited scream, that is to thrill 



284 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

through your marrow ; — yet you know that, strange 
to say, if you throttle it 7 the law will throttle you ! 

6. (S.) 

The necessity of sending a verbal message of the 
utmost consequence, by an ass, who, you plainly 
perceive, will forget (or rather has already for- 
gotten) every word you have been saying. 

7. (S.) 

Being placed, and held, under the harrow, by a 
doting mother^ who, first makes you look over, and 
praise, separately, an huge port-folio of Miss' or 
Master's early school drawings ; and then, sen- 
tences you to hear the urchin repeat all Gay's 
fables. 



Tes. Yes — and there is another specimen 
of this sort of dopyn, quite as delightful to 
witness: 

8. (T.) 

Hearing the same mamma recite, and extol, by 
the hour, the premature wit and wisdom of her 
baby ! 

" Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere." Virg. 



MISEBIES MISCELLANEOUS. 

9. (T.) 

Your snuff-box shutting ill — or rather, not shut- 
ing at all ; so that you cany the snuff, and the box, 
separately, in your pocket. — Also 

10. (T.) 

The dead silence of your capricious watch, when 
you are anxiously listening for its tick. 

11. (S.) 

The moment of recollecting that you have sent a 
letter, unsealed, containing all your most profound 
and delicate secrets, by one who, you know, will 
pay himself for postage, by very freely participating 
in your confidence. — Or, what is still worse : 

12. (S.) 

While at an idle tattling country town in your 
neighbourhood — on searching your pockets for 
such a letter as the above, missing it — then, re- 
collecting in an agony of horror, that you have, 
probably, just dropped it in your walk through 
the high-street— then, rushing out in a state of 
desperation, to seek for it — and, finally, as you are 
giving it up for lost, and passing by the market- 
place in your return homeward, espying the fatal 
epistle in the hands of a Goth, who is reading the 



MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

last words of it, (including your signature,) with 
the voice of a Stentor, to a crowded and laughing 
auditory of both sexes. 

13. (T.) 

Going about for days together with a gaping cut 
in your right hand, (your bad sticking-plaster im- 
mediately coming off as often as you apply it.) till 
it is choaked with dust, as well as widened and in- 
flamed, by rubbing against every thing. — Also 

14. (T.) 

The process of buttoning and tying your clothes 
(ditto of washing your hands) when the fingers are 
in so maimed a condition, that fastening one button 
in a quarter of an hour is doing great things ! 

15. (S.) 
London in September. 

16. (T.) 

Going cheerily to the Bank for your dividends, 
on leaving London, and after waiting an hour be- 
fore you can be served, suddenly discovering that 
you must wait considerably longer — having lost 
your memoranda of all the names and sums upon 
which you are to receive ! 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 287 

17- (S.) 
In going out to sea in a fishing-boat with a de- 
lightful party, continuing desperately sick the whole 
time : — the rest of the company quite gay and well. 

IS. (S.) 
Attending at the Stock-exchange on settling-day, 
amidst the quack of Ducks, the bellowings oi Bulls, 
and the growls of Bears. 



Ned Tes. Yes ; while, to complete the 
concert, 

" the S>TOCK-dove breathes 

A melancholy murmur through the whole." Thorn* 

19. (S.) 

At the House of Commons, during an interesting 
debate — striving in vain to overtake the voice of a 
rapid speaker with your ear. 

20. (T.) 

Reading over the account of " Ways and Means," 
when you have neither ways nor means of meeting 
the new taxes that pounce upon all your favourite 
articles of consumption ; — or, in other words, 
throwing away one sixpence for a news-paper, in 



2SS 



MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 



order to see how many hundred more you are called 
upon to throw after it. 

21. (SL) 

Oh instituting a severe scrutiny into the state of 
your hair, from the sudden and alarming detection 
of a bald spot — finding yourself at least ten years 
nearer to a wig, than you had at all apprehended. 

22. (S.) 

When you are half asleep — receiving, and wading 
through, a long, dull, obscure, illegible, ungram- 
matical, mis-spelt, ill-pointed letter of business- 
requiring a copious answer by the bearer. 

23. (S.) 

In walking the streets — closely following, for 
above half an hour, a fellow with a heel as long as 
his foot, over which an inch of leather barely peeps 
behind ; so that the foot seems, at every step, in 
the act of slipping out of the shoe — till you, at 
length, desperately wish it would happen, that the 
worst may be over. 



I mention this misery to you, Mr. Testy, 
with great hesitation : — as we have been told 
that there are some " joys, which none but 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 239 

madmen know," so are there some " Mise- 
ries/' which none but the Nervous know ;— 
and this, I easily conceive may be one. 

24. (S.) 

Sitting in a chair on which you do not discover 
that honey has been liberally spilt, till, on rising 
to make your bow, you cany away the cushion. 



Ned Tes. 

■ " tollit anum melie vitiatum." Hor* 



Tes. There you are out, Ned ; it is vitia^a. 

Ned Tes. The 1) — 1 it is ! — I am very sorry 
for it: I should otherwise have considered 
it as the luckiest of all my hits. 

r Tes. Why, if you must have an authority 
for this Groan, 1 will give you " dulcia mella 
premes," — Nay, to make Sensitive quite easy, 
here's another for him : — 

" peccat ad cxtrcmum ridendus." 



25. (S.) 

Tho^e certain moments of existence, in which, 

without any assignable cause, Ennui so powerfully 

predominates over your whole system, mental and 

bodily, that you would joyfully submit to the 



290 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

cat-antUnine- tails, by way of ajlapper to your dor- 
mant excitability, 

26. (S.) 

During courtship — flattering yourself that you 

are a year or two younger than some " good 

natured friend or other" proves you to be. 

27. (T.) 
After bathing — the dull, rumbling, rushing, 
sound, which continues all day long in your ears, 
and which all your tweaking, nuzzling, and rum- 
maging at them, serves only to increase. 



Sen. Very sad, Sir; — you might here cry 
with poor Clarence, 

" What dreadful noise of waters in my ears !" 

but then his misery was but a dream ; — would 
that ours were not realities ! 

28. (S.) 
After having, with great difficulty, persuaded a 
friend to sit for his, or her, picture, and then feast- 
ing yourself with the thoughts of possessing a fac 
simile, which the great fame of the artist en- 
couraged you to expect, — receiving, after long 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 291 

delays, what proves to be the face of — any one but 
your friend ! 



Tes. Poor Sensitive ! — That must have been 
quite a scene ! 



animura pictura pascit inani, 



Multa gemensy largoque humectat fi limine vultum^ 

Virg. 

Sen. Yes — but there is another stroke of 
desperation, the same in kind, but far worse 
in degree :■ — I hope it will be new to you, 
though it occurred this very morning to 
myself: 

29- (S.) 

After having been promised what you expect 
will be the painted portrait of a friend — receiving 
instead of it, nothing more substaniial than a black 
Shade : en profile :— • 



On its entrance, Sir, I involuntarily ex- 
claimed : 

-" hence, horrible Shadow ! 



Unreal mockery, hence !" Macb. 

Tes. Yes, yes — I have gone through it more 
than once; though, perhaps, I don't take it 



292 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

quite so patietly as you may : for my part, 
whenever they send me their silhouettes, of 
what do they call them, I chuck them out of 
the window, as soon as they come into the 
room ; — 

" Come like Shadows ? — so depart !" 

is my address to the little blackamoors. 

30. (T.) 

Breaking a phial of asa feetida in your pocket ;— 
and then mangling, as we'll as poisoning your fingers, 
in taking out the bits of broken glass. 

31. (S.) 

Hiding your eyes with your hand, for a whole 
evening together, in vain attempts to recover a tune, 
or a name ; said tune, &c. repeatedly flitting before 
you, but so rapidly as never to be fuirly caught. 

32. (S.) 

Suddenly finding out that your watch has lost 
two or three hours, while you have been revelling 
in a fool's paradise of leisure, and unconsciously 
outstaying your appointments, and disordering all 
the arrangements of the day, with nothing to have 
prevented you from adhering to them with perfect 
ease. 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 2Q3 

34. (S.) 

In handing a glass of wine, or some brittle ar- 
ticle of great beauty and value to another person, — 
suddenly quitting your hold of it, under a false idea 
that he has taken his. — " Guess, ah guess the rest \' y 

35. (T.) 

In pumping ; — the dry 5 wheezing, hiss — and dead 
thumping, drop — of the handle, as you keep work- 
ing it, with vain hopes of water. 

36. (S.) 

- Shewing the colleges, public-buildings, and other 
remarkables of the University, for the 500th time, 
to a party, who discover no signs of life, during the 
whole perambulation. 

37. (T.) 

Buying a pocket handkerchief on an emergency 
so pressing, that you have no time to get it hemmed; 
so that, before the day is half over, it is all in 

strings. 

38. (S.) 

Eagerly breaking open a letter, which, from the 
superscription, you conclude to be from a dear and 
long-absent friend ; and then, finding it to contain 



294 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

nothing but a tradesman's long bill, which, more- 
over, you thought had been long ago discharged — 
but of which immediate payment is demanded in a 
very valiant letter, enclosing the account. : — cash 
extremely low. 

38. (S.) 

Walking fast, and far, to overtake a woman, 
from whose shape and air, as viewed en derriere, 
you have decided that her face is angelic ; till, on 
eagerly turning round, as you pass her, you are 
petrified by a Gorgon ! 



Ned Tes. A dismal transition indeed, from 
" O dea, cert£ !" — to 

u remove fera monstra, tuasque 

Saxiflcos vultus, quascunque ea, tolle Medusas !" 

Ovid. 

39. (S.) 

After having bought, and paid for, some expen- 
sive article, as thinking you had lost such another, 
— unexpectedly rinding the latter ; then endeavour- 
ing, in vain, to persuade the iron shopkeeper to 
take back your purchase, and return the money. 

40. (T.) 

Struggling through the curse of trying to disen- 
tangle your hair, when, by poking curiously about 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS^ 295 

on board of ship, it has become matted with pitch 
or tar, far beyond all the pmvers of the comb : — 

Ned Tes. 

" Non comprae mansere comas — Et rabie fera corda 
tument V 9 Virg. 

41. (T.) 
In sea-bathing — after having thrown off your last 
garment, the endless time during which you stand 
crouching and shivering, till the creeping old bather 
is ready to assist in suffocating you, 

42. (S.) 

Suddenly finding, safe in your pocket, three or 
four letters of 4he most pressing consequence, en- 
trusted to your care a week or fortnight before, by 
a person hardly known to you, upon the faith of 
your promise to put them into the post within an 
hour. 

43. (S.) 
Suddenly missing your snuff-box after dinner, in 
a country-place, where you are leagues off from the 
possibility of a pinch : — then, in your longing agony, 
snuffing up, with your mind's nose 7 the well stored 
canisters of a London shop : — 



£96 



MISERIES OF HUxMAN LIFE, 



Testy, 

" So scented the grim feature, and upturn'd 

His nostril wide into the murky air, 

Sagacious of his quarry from so far !" Milt, 

44. (S.) 

As a candidate — to be thrown out by a casting 
vote; — and this, when your party was so strong, 
that many of your friends kept away, on the cer- 
tainty that you would muster far more than enough 
without them. 



Tes. A strangely perverse Misery, as ever I 
heard of: — -Why this is actually neither more 
nor less, than being starved by repletion ! 

Sen, I preface my next Misery, Mr. 
Testy, by reminding you that I am a public 
speaker : — 

45. (S.) 

Inveterate huskiness coming on you, at the 
moment of beginning your address to a crowded 
audience. 

46. (S.) 

After having long hunted in vain for a missing 
bank-note of 100/. and just as )'ou are in the act 
of accusing an honest servant, on very suspicious 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 297 

appearances of having made a perquisite of it, — 
suddenly spying out the last rag of its remains in 
the mouth and paws of a puppy, who had sliiy em- 
bezzled it, for his own private recreation. 

47- (S.) 
Paying the bills of blacksmiths, butchers " et 
hoc genus omne," and receiving in change, \l. notes, 
silver, and halfpence, in a condition but too strongly 
impressing upon your mind the truth of the adage, 
that " riches are but dirt !" 

48. (S.) 

While you are gravely and anxiously setting your 
watch by the Horse-Guards, towards dusk,-^-being 
suddenly relieved from your trouble by the snatch 
of a thief, — who vanishes for ever ! 

49. (S.) 

Learning, among other interesting communica- 
tions in a letter just received from a dear friend in 
India, or America, that about a dozen of your last 
pacquets, on both sides, have missed their way. 

50. (S.) 

In passing through St. James's Park, towards the 
evening of a November day, — to witness the sprink- 
ling of disconsolate Quizzes, and Dowdies, who 



£98 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

haunt the walks at such times — some solitarily 
muzzing and moping on the benches — others scat- 
teredlj sauntering they know not whither — all 
embodied symbols of whatever is 

" Weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable \ f Hamlet* 



The following I should address to the mea- 
gre visaged . like myself, rather than to such a 
well-fed sufferer as you are, Mr. Testy : — 

51. (S.) 
The necessity of borrowing the spectacles of a 
moon-faced friend. 



Ned Tes. Very bothering indeed ! 

" Nonhoc istasibi tempus spectacula poscit." 

Virg. 

92. (S.) 

After bathing in the river — on returning to the 

bank for your clothes, finding that a passing thief 

has taken a sudden fancy to the cut of every article 

of y our dress ! 

53. (T.) 
Your horse falling lame, at the moment when 
you have come up with a scavenger's brimming car, 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 2Q0 

— leaving you no prospect of getting the start of 
the stench, till your nose has gotten it completely 
by heart. 



Tts. So ! your troubles are over, 1 see ;-— 
don't mistake me — I only mean that ;.ou have 
finished your list: so have I, all but one ; 
and that, luckily, is a Misery of " mark and 
likelihood/' very fit to bring up the rear with 
— a good heavy Groan, " full of sound and 
fury," but by no means t€ signifying nothing m " 
as you will allow: 

54. (T.) 

In going to the stable, towards night, stumbling 
over a pail of water, which a rascally groom has 
left to receive you, in the middle of the door-way ; 
and which, after first taking you with its edge across 
the shins, sends you well-soused at your full length, 
with your head just behind the heels of a kicking 
horse : — 



Ned Tes. 

" Successitque gemens stabulis ; questuque, cruentus 
Atque imploranti simihs, tectum omne replevit." 

Virg. 



SOO MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

Tes. Talking of the stable, by the bye, I 
must run away from you for half an hour: — 
ray blockhead, who calls himself a groom, has 
contrived to groom my favourite mare into 
the yellows. I have sent her to the farrier's, 
about half a mile off, and must go myself, 
and see that the fellow gives her a drench, 
which the poor slut was to take about this 
time. — I'll be back in a twinkling. 

Sen. {After gloomily musing for a minute, 
in the same posture,) 

u But yet alas !— O but yet alas ! — our haps be but 
hard haps V Sir PkiL Sidney. 

{As he finishes the words. Testy bursts in, 
stamping, raving, and roaring, with his 

face covered with blood and mud, and his 
cldthes bespattered with filth from head to 

foot. 

Sen. O, my friend ! what do I see? 

" quantum mutatus ab illo !"— 
" q U2e causa indigna serenos 



Foedavit vultus ? aut cur hsec vulnera cerno ?" 

Vug. 
Tes. {After a volley of execrations.) A mur- 
rain seize all coachmen, footmen, postilions, 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 301 

horses, and all that belongs to them, — wheels, 
roads, and all ! — why, Sir — why — what did 

you say ? — O ..... O *.... O ugh ! — - a pack 

of— " 

Sen. Nay, nay, Mr, Testy, it is horrible 
enough, to be sure; but be comforted — this 
is all in our way, you know ; and our list of 
Miseries...*. 

Tes. Hold your tongue, Sensitive !— look 
at me ! — hold your tougue, I teil you, or I'll, 
hug you— nay, I'll kiss you, you dog !— what 
am I to do? 

Sen. {During whose speech, Testy breaks out 
into every possible variety of ungovernable rage.) 
Do?— why, open your eyes, if you can, and 
then you will see a bason of water which your 
servant has brought to you, and which seems 
the best present remedy that your case af- 
fords ; and then, if you should ever recover 
your tranquillity, indulge, I beseech you, what 
you will not consider as an impertinent cu- 
riosity respecting the cause, and circum- 
stances, of this mountainous calamity. — (Testy 
replies with a loud bellow.) Nay, courage, my 1 
friend !— the bare relation of such a disaster 



302 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

will silence our adversaries at once, and cleave 
the very sinews of their cause ! — Let me, then, 
hear the petrifying particulars, at full length — 
I adjure you by your fidelity to the cause, of 
which we are the plighted champions ! — Let 
me hear them ! 

Tes. Hear them? — Well, well — if I can 

ever a dozen scampering scoundrels, at 

least!— but I'll—I'll — yes— if I do'nt !— but 
no matter — if I can get through my Groan in 
the usual form — I — I will ; — shall I ever be 
able to tell it ? — I can but try, however — yes 
— I will try : — 

55. (T.) 

Walking, nicely dressed, — nicely dressed! — you 
remember I was — and for the first time these twenty- 
years — things! things! — very nicely dressed, 
I say — along a clean causeway — as clean as the 
floor, Sir ! — but by the side ofa road a& muddy as 
a dragged fish-pond — four feet deep in mire, and 
more!— and receiving the successive splashings of 
a dashing, sawcy equipage, with a posse of out- 
riders ail at full speed, plump in your face — eyes, 
mouth, nostrils, and ears included ! — the handker- 
chief 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 303 

Ned Tes. 

" Noses, ears, and lips ! — is it possible ?^— » 
Handkerchief ! —O Devil I" Othel Act. IV. scene 1. 

Tes. Hold your tongue, Ned, or I'll gag 
you ! 

— the handkerchief which you apply to your face 
in your wrathful agony, acting as a painting brush 
instead of a towel, and raking the blood out of your 
flesh by scumbling in the small sharp gravel along 
with the mud— then, hearing the leash of powdered 
jackanapes' on the foot-board behind setting up a 
horse-laugh, and — no! — I can't — I won't' — I don't 

bear it ! — I — 0~ o — o— o — o ! — Ah — h — 

h— h! 



(Here Testy turns black in the face, fal&t 
and is born off.) 

Sen. (solus.) 

" Vitaque, cum gemitti, fugit indignita sub 
Umbras !" Vir<?. 

o 

(At this moment enters Sensitive's elder 
brother.) 

Sen. senr. Well, Samuel ; how do I find 
you ? — overwhelmed, as usual, I see; — tinder 



304 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

what u new and strange" calamity are you 
labouring now? — have you just been frying 
under the torment of a morning call from an 
idle neighbour, when you particularly wished 
to be alone i — or has some wicked rogue 
lately chosen a wrong moment for his jest? 
— or what other still more direful alarm has 
thus " cowed your better part of man ?** — 
Am I never to have the good fortune of 
catching you with your eye-brows half an 
inch asunder ? — or are you heroically deter- 
mined to die, at last, a martyr to — Nothing? 
t € . Open thy ponderous and marble jaws," I 
beseech you, and tell me what's the matter 
with you? — How! silent still! — Nay, bro- 
ther, then I must alter my tone, and ask you 
very seriously — have all my frequent an4 
anxious expostulations with you against this 
fitful, querulous, fastidious temper of yours, 
turned out to be but waste wind r — Instead 
of that rational and manly intercourse of af- 
fection to which I have a brother's right in 
you. society, am I perpetually doomed to be 
a weary listener to effeminate complaints, 
and histories without end of artificial sorrows, 
and .ideal mortifications ?■ — Will you neither. 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 305 

discover for yourself, nor accept another's dis- 
covery, that the ff dagger which you see be- 
fore you/' is " but a dagger of the mind r" — 
that the Shapes by which you are teazed, or 
terrified, are only pigmies, magnified into 
giants by the fogs of imagination ? 

Sen.junr. Peace, brother; your rebukes 
are, for once, at least, deplorably out of sea- 
son— unless you are prepared to maintain 
that the death, or danger, of a friend is a 
pigmy, or " an air-drawn dagger." 

" No man bears sorrow better ;" — Testy s " dead.*' 

Jul. Cces. 

Or, if he still live, be has only such life as a fit 
of apoplexy allows him. 

(Here S. Sensitive relates, at large, the par- 
ticulaisof Testy s accident ,and its consequences.) 

Sen.senr. Hum ! — Portentous, indeed ! — 
"But now, my dear brother, if he should really 
have uttered his last " Groan" (that, I think, 
is the awful name, with which you have 
agreed to dignify your little fidgets, as the 
ladies more happily express the thing,) if, I 
say, he should have actually breathed, as well 
as groaned, his last,— why, in that melan- 



306 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE* 

choly case, I, for my part, shall incline to 
think it possible that he might have been 
saved, merely by forbearing to groan at all ! — 
and then, perhaps, brother Samuel, a few 
Groans less on your part, too, might have 
been as well — and, what is worse still, a few 
Groans more may chance to bring you into 
the same condition ! — and, after all, (as I may 
now, methinks, demand more confidently than 
ever,) are these Groans quite as imperiously 
Called for as you have so long encouraged 
each other in concluding them to be? — 
Groans, I have said, all along; — but, as for 
your unhappy friend, he, as I recollect, had 
still more animated ejaculations of discontent 
In readiness for his occasions; his " Groans" 
having been usually vented in the form of 
imprecations ; I can truly assert, at least, 
that whenever he entered a room in which I 
have chanced to be one of the company, he 
regularly " took the oaths, and his seat," to- 
gether. — But to return to the question upon 
which I was entering, and examine it a little 
more closely ; — is it, let me ask you, incon- 
testibly certain, that the instances which you 
have at all times, so prominently displayed, 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 307 

and so ostentatiously lamented, as evils, are 
fully entitled to that name and character ?— 
or, admitting them to be such, in kind, are 
you sure that you have made no mistake at 
all, as to the degree? — But this inquiry will 
be most effectually managed by a reference to 
particular cases; and here, as the onus pro* 
handi lies properly on you, I openly challenge 
you to bring forward a few particular thunder- 
claps, selected at your own discretion, from 
yourgeneral magazine of" Miseries."- — Come, 
brother, you must not shrink from the fair 
test by which I am desirous of proving you : 
you informed me a few days ago, that, in one 
of your sad " Conferences," as you termed 
them, with your (late ?) friend, you had split 
your * Groans" into two grand divisions- 
mental and corporeal ; and you have occasi- 
onally treated me with a few articles under 
each head : produce them, if you please, once 
more ; and let me try whether I cannot con- 
front and overthrow them with others, similar 
in form, but immeasurably exceeding them in 
size. 

Sen.junr. Shrink from your test?— No, 
brother ; I retort your defiance ; and shall be 



308 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

able, I flatter myself, to set up " Miseries, 5 '" 
faster than you can throw them down. I 
will, first, adduce a few samples from the in- 
ferior of the two classes :-^-let me ask you, 
then, without farther preface, what you ho- 
nestly think of " an inveterate corn on the 
little toe ?" 

Sen. senr. You have opened with a most 
formidable fatality, I must own ! — and yet I 
will summon courage to inquire, in my turn, 
what you think of the amputation of the whole 
leg? 

Sen. junr. What ? why, that— but come — 
I will not dispute with you for trifles; but pass, 
at once, to poor Mr. Testy's late affliction : 
- — is it nothing, think you, to be e< splashed," 
as he was, " from head to foot," — and this, 
under such aggravated circumstances, as I 
have related ? 

Sen. senr. Be that affliction as terrible as it 
may, I will intrepidly meet your question with 
another :— I ask, then, is splashing, under any 
circumstances, positively as bad as drowning ? 

Sen. junr. As I have not yet tried both, I 
must unavoidably leave the question unan- 
swered. I proceed, then ; and will next try 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS, 309 

you with" A door swinging and whining upon 
its unoiled hinge." 

Sen. senr. I stand unmoved ; and, in reply, 
confess myself biassed by the vulgar notion, 
that the shrieks of a hinge, however piercing, 
would yet be more easily endured than the 
shrieks of the whole family, if the house were 
on fire. And I take leave to add, that, what- 
ever you and Mr. Testy may have ruled to 
the contrary, a house is no bad tiling, after all, 
though the hinges of one of its doors should 
sometimes cry out for a little oil ; nay, even 
should no oil be ready to answer the summons. 

Sen.jimr. Well, well, then — " The tor- 
ment inflicted through a whole night by a 
flea I" 

Sen. senr. I well remember that you were 
once veiy eloquent upon this, as the nt plus 
ultra of human distress ; I will not be dis- 
mayed, however, but boldly venture my opi- 
nion, that a single nip from a shark, or a tiger, 
would be still less desirable than a thousand 
bites from the fiercest flea that ever thirsted 
for human blood. 

Sen. junr. It might, or might not; for 
here, again, I happen to be experimentally 



310 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

acquainted with but one of the two eases. — 
"Treading, unexpectedly, on the back of a 
toad r 

Sen. senr. The back of a toad — very slip- 
pery walking, I can easily conceive; but I 
should suppose, Samuel, that the back of an 
adder must be to the full as uncomfortable a 
kind of footing; if that were all; but when 
his teeth, (with which he is very expert, when- 
ever thus put out of his way,) come to be 
thrown into the scale— Jo say nothing of those 
little purses of poison at the bottom of them 
—I seem to see, in a moment, which of the 
two reptiles must kick the beam. 

Sen.junr. You are as obstinate as usual, 
brother ; and I dare say, will not consider the 
casualty of" Breaking a bell-string" as a mat- 
ter of very deep concern. 

Sen senr. O yes! truly tragical, without 
fltaubt;— but how for breaking one's neek? — 
certain!)', say I, to the full as much, and per- 
haps even more so. — But enough of what you 
have yourself admitted to be the meaner of 
your two classes of Pathology; and in truth, 
with respect to this, I already see Conviction 
" like an Angel come ;" though you have not 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 311 

yet bad the candour to announce her arrival ; 
— let us now, therefore, if you please, ascend 
to your higher order of tribulations, upon 
which you, in particular, have been, at once, 
so splenetic and so self-complacent — I mean, 
the sentimental vexations of Social life. 

Sen. jun. Nay, here I may safely defy you % 
Beware, brother ! — if you set your foot on this 
ground, you are lost. 

Sen. sen. N'importe : I have no fear, and 
am resolutely ready to attend you through the 
thickest horrors of society, where tl Miseries," 
according to your account, lurk in ambush 
under the chairs and tables, and every house 
is founded on a mine ; where the parlour is 
peopled by Monsters and Furies, under the 
figuresof ladies and gentlemen; and "Groans" 
are, as it were, the vernacular idioms, and 
most familiar dialects of common conversa- 
tion. Since, however, I have found you some- 
what more embarrassed by my replies than I 
expected, what if I release you from the task 
of searching for instances, and take it upon 
myself? — 

Sen. jan. Before you begin, brother, let me 
only advise you to be very honest in selecting 



3 12 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

them. It will avail you nothing to sup- 
press the strongest cases ; for you may easily 
suppose that I shall carefully supply any omis- 
sions of this nature which I may discover. 

Sen, sen. Be not alarmed, Samuel ; you 
have, here, a triple security ;— my own good 
faith — the jealous watch whichJ^ou have 
threatened to keep over me — and the accu- 
racy of my recollection; which last, indeed, 
you have, yourself, effectually ensured, by 
having repeated to me your favourite woes, 
till they are indelibly burnt into my memory; 
as you shall presently allow : — to my ques- 
tions, then : — Is the frothiest coxcomb that 
ever rattled in a ball-room, altogether as ruin- 
ous to one's peace as a treacherous friend? 
— May we 0$ justifiably forswear for ever the 
acquaintance of a worthy character, because 
he has been sometimes known to raise his 
voice above the established concert-pitch of 
polite conversation, as we may that of a 
Miscreant, whose tongue, whether- rough or 
lished, is the Organ of Duplicity, or the 
Trumpet of slander, or the Dagger of malice ? 
-—Is it absolutely harder to forgive. a. fellow- 
creature for murdering a good .story, than a 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 313 

good wife ? — Nay, imagining the most pa- 
thetic case of colloquial disgust that even 
your own plastic imagination cold furnish 
out — would you seriously add, that if the case 
under supposition were to befal yourself, you 
should fairly die, (as you ludicrously appre- 
hend that your friend has clone,) under the 
annoyance? — and if this is more than you 
would quite venture to swear, would not your 
silence amount to a pla.n confession that the 
afflictions of those hapless multitudes who 
have actually so died, were still more intoler- 
able than your own ; and should it not thence 
follow, as a natural corollary, that it is, at 
last, better to be bothered, than, broktn- 
Jiearted? 

Sen.jun. I fancy, brother, you are deter- 
mined to bring your last question to an im- 
mediate issue, by oppressing me with such a 
crowd of queries in a breath : you seem to 
have borrowed a hint from Hercules, in his 
scuffle with Antaeus, and, since you cannot 
conquer me, blow for blow, are willing to try 
whether I am to be stifled. I shall not deny, 
nevertheless, that some of your counter ex- 
amples have considerable weight < — much 



314 MISERIES OF HtJMAN LIFE. 

more, indeed> than I had expected ;— with a 
very little leisure for reflection, however, I 
should not doubt of finding such other in- 
stances as would force the best of yours to 
* hide their diminished heads." 

Sen. senr. Nay, Samuel, were it not for the 
grotesque absurdity of the argument into 
which we have fallen, I would engage, on my 
part, to run on the comparison ad infinitum ; 
and this too with the same advantage which 
you have, thus far, seemed, however reluct- 
antly, to yield in my favour. 

But this is not enough, toy friend ; — -no, 
not by a great deal ; — for I would next go on 
to inquire, in opposition to this doggedly do- 
lorous cast of mind, which it is your pride to 
cherish, instead of resisting,— might not the 
very disposition to confess that these things 
may be as I have represented them, materially 
tend to assist in planting the experimental 
conviction that they actually are so ? 

Sen. jiinr. A very reasonable postulate, 
truly !— that I should think what I can not 
think! and see what is invisible! 

Sen. senr. No;—- that you should gPkM 
that to be possible which you do not think 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 315 

true; and that to be visible to others which 
you cannot yet see ; — and this is, in other 
words, no more than asking you to confess, 
that bigotry, on whatever subject, is the ge- 
nuine offspring of natural or wilful blind- 
ness. — But abandoning this ground, and 
admitting, for a moment, your Miseries to be, 
as you have painted them, both genuine in 
kind, and exquisite in degree, — shail the af- 
firmative thus conceded be said to warrant 
the utmost extravagances of fury or despon- 
dency, in the victim? — or, surrendering this, 
too, — is their policy, even if there were inno- 
cence, in these excesses ? — Is it not on the 
contrary, notorious, that those very persons 
who are visited with what I affirm to be the 
real sorrows of life, are frequently in the 
fruition of higher degrees of happiness, upon 
the whole, through the mere medium of sub- 
missive patience, than you have been, who 
have suffered only its fictitious evils, but who 
have disdained to lean upon the same support ? 
Sen.junr. Undoubtedly. That, between 
our " Miseries" themselves, on one hand, and 
our impatience under them, on the other, we 
are the most unhappy of the human race, it 



316 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

is the very business of my argument not 
merely to admit, but to contend. 

Sen. senr. Is it so ?— Why, then, the next 
thing which your argument has to do, is to 
give up the ghost :— -yes, Samuel ; by admit- 
ting that the impatience which you suffer 
your Miseries to occasion, is, itself, to be 
added into your general account of unhap- 
piness, you have given an effectual quietus to 
the controversy. For, the inquiry with which 
we are truly and properly concerned, is, not 
into the abstract nature of the respective evils 
herein question, (which, regarded by them- 
selves, are nothing, on either side,) but into 
their sensible effects upon the mind which 
they assail; into the comparative quantum 
of misery, which they inevitably leave behind 
them, when the utmost degree of fortitude 
has, on both sides, been opposed to the 
utmost power of misfortune : — the whole 
question swings upon this hinge ; and, I 
think, I have satisfactorily shewn that it shuts 
poor Testy and yourself completely out of 
doors. 

Sen.junr. I shall not deny, that you have 
displayed some eloquence as an advocate ; 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 317 

but eloquence, and argument, remember, are 
not always twins. 1 have already told you, 
brother, with respect to Mr. Testy and my- 
self, that our impatience is a natural infir- 
mity; and you might as hopefully try to 
persuade our poor old bed-ridden great-grand- 
father up stairs, that, if he pleased, he could 
jump up, and follow a fox-chase; — aye, or 
engage to reason yonder cripple into a rope- 
dancer, as attempt to argue Mr. Testy into 
meekness, or myself into serenity. 

Sen. senr. You perfectly confound me, Sa- 
muel ! — till now, your eccentricities, of tem- 
per have amused, even while they distressed 
me; but at present, I am purely alarmed, 
without the smallest mixture of entertainment. 
— Upon your sincerity, as a brother, and a 
friend, I conjure you to answer me — Is man, 
— moral, rational man, — a freeman, or a 
slave ? — Are all the celebrated schools of old 
or modern ethics to be thought of simpty as 
the Fairy-land of fancy ; or, at best, but a* 
successive fields, on which the Wise have met, 
to wrestle for the palm of intellect ? — 

Sen.junr. Nay, nay, brother, in whatever 
light we are to consider these boasted schools* 



313 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

they have certainly thundered their syllogisms 
at higher crimes and misdemeanors, than — ■ 
what? — a few animated complaints against the 
coarse persecutions, by which men of taste 
and delicacy are incessantly outraged, and in- 
sulted, from every quarter. 

Sen. senr. Brother, you are " a scholar, 
and a ripe one ;" — to come, then, more di- 
rectly to our point: does your acquaintance 
even with Heathen literature supply no cases 
to your recollection, in which the man who 
had been cradled, reared, and pampered in 
ferocity, was subsequently disciplined into 
mildness by his own hands i — The self-wrought 
gentleness of Socrates, for instance, which is 
handed down to us upon his own evidence — 
is this to be taken as a fable, or a record ? 

Sen.junr. The latter, I suppose. 

Sen. senr. If, then, an unenlightened Mo- 
ralist, from Nature's school, could build him- 
self to these, and other heights of virtue. 

3'ou guess, no doubt, to what I point; and, 
fresh as we are from such frivolities as we 
began with, you see how much I hesitate at 
the hallowed reference which I have in view ; 
— and yet I will not — nay, I dare not check 



MISERIES IVIISCELLANEOUS. S 19 

the stirring question.— Is there, I demand, 
no other volume on your shelves, in which the 
tie of patience, under every proof, is bound 
upon our hearts and souls by other hands, and 
sealed with other sanctions and examples, 
than the best, or brightest of these Pagan 
Worthies ever reached in dreams ? — -sanctions, 
of which the mighty weight, and price, are 
still but faintly known, and quite unfelt, ex- 
cept by those who own the Moral Govern- 
ment but as tributary to an higher, nobler ^ and 
more azcful Kingdom. 

What ! are you electrified at last ? 

Sen.junr. You have, indeed, produced an 
authority, for which I will confess that I was 
not immediately prepared: and if, on close 
examination, I shall find that it determines 
full against me, I must, assuredly, withdraw 
my pleas. I trust, however, that even in this 
case, I shall be allowed the benefit of time 
and consideration. Feelings so deeply rooted 
as mine, are not to be solicited from the soil 
at a touch :- — besides, brother, I cannot but 
expect that, even in the venerable pages to 
which you have referred me, I shall find al- 
lowance for the irresistible strength of natural 



320 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

impulses ; and then should I, of all men liv** 
ing, have a claim to whatever indulgence 

Sen. scnr. A claim that is cancelled by the 
very act of enforcing it ; fur, indulgence be- 
ing free, and a claim being compulsory, it is 
obvious that they can never coexist with 
respect to the same instance. Am I safe in 
this deduction ? — I take your answer from 
your silence. 

But let us now descend, brother, from an 
eminence on which I fear you may be giddy, 
from having hitherto frequented it too little. 
What, then, remains for me to say, that you 
can bear more easily ? — Fain would I wind up 
my reprehensions, by declaring, once for all, 
that you, and your friend, have each gone 
miserably wrong, from the beginning ; — first, 
through the monstrosity of preferring the 
painful to the pleasureable, when both were at 
your choice; secondly, (since you zcould be 
wretches, as a matter of taste,) in coining, and 
uttering, your own counterfeit calamities, and 
at the same time, affecting to cry down the 
sterling miseries of life ; and thirdly, by cul- 
tivating habits of petulance and discontent, 
on the score of such light evils as bechance 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. Stl 

yourselves, in common with all the sons and 
daughters of Adam, — instead of thankfully 
rejoicing in the indulgence you have so little 
deserved, in that those massy sorrows, which 
alone deserve the name, have not heen heaped 
and pressed upon your hearts, till they had 
burst under the burden. — This flagrant ab- 
surdity in Morals may be said a little to resem- 
ble that of certain votaries of a certain Faith, 
in Religion — men who preposterously transfer 
their reverence from sober ceremonies, and 
unadulterated doctrines, to devotion in mas- 
querade ; to the consecrated Hocus-pocus of 
St. Januarius's blood, or the supernatural 
Knick-knacks of Loretto. 

So then, Samuel ! — Juvenal, you see, turns 
out to be in the right, after all: 

" see! nee 

Tarn tenuis census tibi contigit, ut mediocris 
Jacturae te mergat onus ; nee rara videmus 
Quae pateris. Casus multis hie cognitus, ac jam 
Tritus, et e medio Fortunae ductus acervo. 
Ponamus nimios Gemitus. Flagrantior aequo 
Non debet Dolor esse viri, nee vulnere major ; — 
Xu quamvis levium minimam exiguamque m alarum 
Particulam vix ferre potes, spumantibus ardens 
Visceribus." 

Y 



523 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE, 

Sagely concluding his lecture with 



" Dicimus, autem, 



Has quoque felices, qui ferre incommoda vita?, 
Nee jactare jugum vita didic&re magistral 

I have never forgotten the passage, since I 
once translated it at Oxford as an imposition, 
for swearing most indecently at one or other 
of your precious catalogue of" Miseries ;"■>■** 
I think I could still recollect the lines I gave 
in : — 

But not so lost, so abject thine estate, 
That thou must sink beneath a feather's weight ; 
Nor rare, nor monstrous, thy misfortune shews — t 
Drawn from the mingled heap of Fortune's woes. 
Away, then, with immod'rate Groans ; — the cry 
Should suit the Mis'ry, nor the wound bely. 
But you, whose Fever boils through ev'ry vein, 
Can brook no jot, no particle of pain. 

Call happy those whom life has school'd to bear 
Her fretting yoke — not cast it in despair. 

The last sentence is, in itself, a verdict 
against you both ; — as Juvenal, however, was 
no joker, I will venture to supply one defect 
m hh ^admonitions, by suggesting, that the 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 823 

most palatable form in which his prescription 
of patience under trumpery troubles can be 
made up, is that of laughter^— which, next 
to breathing, is perhaps, the most important 
business of the lungs ; and accordingly, even 
those who cannot, sometimes, help crying a 
little over these, and such like "Miseries of 
Human Life," may take a wholesome hint 
from Andromache, who, even in the midst 
of her tears, contrived to edge in a smile — 
AccKpvozv y£/\acrew#. Shakspeare, too, has left for 
such as cannot entirely give up the privilege 
of w r himpering on these occasions, a short 
sentence, which might be turned to the same 
profitable account ; 



— — — u more merry tears 

The passion of loud laughter never shed," 

Here, then, my dear brother Samuel, you 
will, I doubt not, very readily agree to a sus- 
pension of arms. Whether the edge of my 
argument, assisted by Mr. Testy and his fit, 
has bitten more deeply in this, than in any 
of our former intellectual duels, I will not, 
at present, stay to inquire ; but remain satis- 
fied with those involuntary demonstrations of 



324 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

weakness which you have made, more and 
more perceptihly, from the beginning of our 
present encounter lo the end. That you will 
ultimately, and freely, lay down your arms, 
I do, certainly, both hope and predict ; but 
it will be more honourable both to me, and 
to yourself, that this step should be taken 
after a counsel with reason, than in a start of 
panic: — in the mean time, let me shield you 
from the apparent disgrace of a surrender, by 
suggesting that, in this peculiar species of 
warfare, capitulation is richer than victory ;• — 
nay, that defeat itself is fame. 

Sen.junr. (after a long pause.) Have I 
another argument left? — No. Why then, 
brother, the day is yours ; — and, since you 
have not frightened, but fairly beaten me 
from the field, I will no longer keep you in 
waiting for your triumph. Yes: — from this 
moment, I abjure the pernicious errors in 
which I have lived : — abjure them in principle, 
I mean ; for, with regard to practice, I beg 
leave to make no engagements ; since, what- 
ever the dramatists, with their off-hand re- 
formations in the last scene of the last act, 
may find it convenient to suppose, I am fully 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 325 

aware that, off the stage, practice aforesaid 
is never found to be quite so prompt an attend- 
ant upon theory, as they have represented. I 
em resolved, however, to make the attempt 
without delay, and am now impatient for an 
opportunity of displaying my patience. 

Sen. senr. Take my hand, Samuel; I have 
retrieved a brother ! — That you accept my 
principles, is all that I, at present desire ; and 
as for the modesty with which you speak of 
yourself, on the side of actual performance, I 
am willing to embrace it as an earnest of your 
final success. Thus far, then, we have auspi- 
ciously proceeded towards the great point 
which I have in view; — and here, perhaps, 
I am bound by my late offer to close our dis- 
cussion ; but, to say the truth, your extra- 
ordinary candour encourages me to advance 
one step farther : — you are anxious, you say, 
for a fresh opportunity of trying your strength 
upon a few of those minor Miseries, to which 
you have hitherto yielded up your tranquillity, 
without a struggle : this ambition is, allow- 
edly, very honourable, even as it stands ; but 
I am tempted to furnish it with an additional 



S ( 2G MISERIES OF HUitiAN LIFE. 

motive, by which it will be still farther en- 
nobled : the motive I mean is that of prepay 
ing yourself, by this diligent rehearsal of 
patience under easy trials, for a higher display 
of resignation, under an higher order of dis- 
tresses;— distresses so serious, that you have 
hitherto derided them, purely from ignorance 
of their real nature; and so formidable, that 
the species of preparation which I have here 
recommended, is found no more than neces- 
sary to every man who aspires to stand un- 
staggered beneath their blows. 

Sen.junr. Though as yet but a novice in 
the school of real affliction, I think I com- 
prehend the force of your last allusion bro- 
ther. You would tell me, I conceive, that it 
is in the case of contest with affliction, as in 
that of actual warfare. The soldier who car- 
lies arms in peace, and practises his courage 
against fictitious dangers, has insensibly be- 
come a veteran, before he has risked a battle; 
and, when, at length, he is summoned out to 
action, brings a seasoned valour into the field. 
Thus, you would say, the man who has dili- 
gently proved his equanimity upon mean 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 327 

occasions, has performed self-government so 
long, that he has nearly rooted the principle 
of impatience out of his nature ; — has so fre- 
quently despised all little molestations, that, 
in the end, he forgets to be ruffled when they 
arise. 

Sen. senr. You have spared me the neces- 
sity of unfolding my comparison. Yes, my 
brother; whoever is thus exercised and for- 
tified against the accidents of the passing 
hour ; whoever is thus accustomed to be 
thwarted in his course, without loss of his 
moderation, is the early veteran whom you 
have just described : it must be clear, that 
such a man is, better than another, prepared 
for the heaviest fire of misfortune ; and that, 
open upon him when it may, he will be found 
in heart, and under arms. 

Sen.junr. I have already shewn, brother, 
that I perceive the drift of your military me- 
taphor; but I must not conceal that I have 
a doubt upon my mind, as to the closeness 
of the parallel. In the present -altered state 
of my feelings and opinions, all my former 
" Groans," or" Miseries," begin to appear, by- 
contrast, so very poor, and trivial, that I can 



328 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE; 

scarcely grant them even so much conse- 
quence as you would assert in their favour ; 
viz. that they are good for the use of prepara- 
tory discipline ; since, by any man possessing 
but a grain of real resolution, they must, 
surely, be regarded as altogether despicable; 
— as neither loud enough to be heard, nor 
heavy enough to be felt. 

SeH.&enr. Aye, Samuel; like every other 
new-made convert, I see, you are off, at a 
flying leap, from one extremity of the ques- 
tion to the other; it must be my endeavour, 
therefore, to fix you safe in the centre, where 
reason will, as usual, be found to reside. In 
truth, I cannot but smile at the point to 
which you have now brought the argument ; 
for, by a most whimsical revolution of things, 
it has suddenly become my business to per- 
suade you, that your quondam " Miseries," 
nugatory as they may be, are not, however, 
the absolute nullities which you are, all at 
once, in such violent haste to pronounce 
them. The simple truth is, that the little 
disturbances now in question, atone, in a cer- 
tain measure, for their futility, by their fre- 
quency and, in like manner as the greater 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 329 

periods of time are computed by the single 
moments of which they consist, it may be said 
that the general firmness, or imbecillity, of the 
human mind is to be measured by its habitual 
deportment under these apparently slight, 
but, in mi/ view, really important, vexations ; 
— important, I say, in-as-much-as they make 
up, in great part, the history of every day, and 
every hour.— Have you sufficiently reflected, 
too, that habits (and it is with habits that we 
are now concerned,) are acquired, not from 
circumstances of rare occurrence, however 
prominent, or striking, but rather from the 
diminutive incidents of daily life, seem they 
as contemptible as they may. From habit, 
as before remarked, arises discipline; and by 
discipline we are schooled to the sublimest 
efforts, whether of knowledge, or of virtue. 

Sen,junr. By what you have now said, my 
dear brother, you have removed my only 
remaining difficulty; and by so doing, have 
crowned my obligations to you for having 
forced me out of the crooked path in which I 
was wandering, into the direct road of hap- 
piness, — in which I have next to try how 



330 MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE. 

stedfastly I can persevere. " Video meliora, 
proboque," is, at least, a favourable omen. 

Sen. senr. As such, I most cordially hail it ; 
— the real character of the augury, however, 
as you have yourself observed, will be better 
determined at a future period, when you shall 
have made some progress in the Sacrifice to 
Patience which you have in hand. — For the 
present, Samuel, you will, I dare say, think 
it is quite time that we should look a little 
after your poor fellow-sufferer Mr. Testy, 
whose voice I am very happy to hear, (and, 
for once, with a mute upon it,) in the next 
room. I will first, if possible, persuade him, 
as I have so happily persuaded you, to dis- 
band, on his part, those imaginary Myrmi- 
dons, which you have both so long been 
arming against yourselves — (Sen.junr. smiles 
ruefully) — and should I unexpectedly suc- 
ceed in this, I will next attempt to kindle in 
your minds a favourable disposition towards 
a new scheme which has occurred to me with 
regard to your great subject; a scheme for 
which even you are, at present, I fancy, very 
little prepared ;— it is no other than that of 



MISERIES MISCELLANEOUS. 331 

presenting your woeful collections, together 
with the substance of our present dialogue, to 
the public, in the character of a Moral 
Jest-Book. 



FINIS. 



-" ridentem dicere verum 



Quid vetat V Hor. 



Printed by W. Bulraer and C6« 
Cleyeland-row, St. James's. 



I 



J, 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




010 227 949 9 



